


broke as a bottle of wine

by theproseofnight



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Childhood Friends, F/F, Fluff and Smut, feels with a happy ending, they got some rich love, trust fund babies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:34:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23879995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theproseofnight/pseuds/theproseofnight
Summary: Lexa tastes like the vestiges of boarding school love. Clarke melts into her. Gets carried away by memories of Hampton summers and garden parties and private jet getaways. Gets lost in lakeside skinny dips and fireside chats over an endless run of Moët.OR Rich Clarke and Lexa meeting again and kissing their way to a different future.
Relationships: Clarke Griffin/Lexa
Comments: 114
Kudos: 1114





	1. rich in love

*******

“I hear the new CEO is an ass. Some trust fund baby.”

“Monty, _I’m_ a trust fund baby.”

“Yeah, but you’re a nice trust fund baby. The globetrotting kind who saves real babies. These MBAs write cheques to non-profits and get an award for it while you’re in the field working eighty hour weeks setting up free maternity clinics with barely an acknowledgment.”

“We need those cheques,” Clarke reminds her assistant, who’s tapping away on a pad and not looking up while lamenting the disparities of the world. Frankly, she’s not paying attention either and doesn’t care whose signature they get as long as the money flows. She stopped listening after he went on about a corporate overlord now crossing their _t_ and dotting their _i_ on every project, a real ball buster who also apparently insists on monthly onsite visits. Clarke has not absorbed any of the information, happy to leave the logistics and details in Monty’s capable hands while she deals with the frontline, and for the moment, banquet table aesthetics.

“But at what cost?” Monty gripes, pausing his swiping to ask, face contorted in rhetorical conundrum.

Clarke had hired him because he wasn’t part of her world and can be counted on to keep her humble and level-headed, but sometimes, she found his principles annoying. “Are we all set?”

“Yup.” One final emphatic tap and Monty beams triumphant. “Done. Ready.”

“Great, thanks.” Clarke leans over from where she’s fiddling with the centrepiece floral arrangement and draws him into a hug. “I’ll see you tonight? You’re bringing Miller, right?”

Monty blushes but nods. “Sure you don’t want me to stick around to help you finish the rest?”

Clarke scans the ballroom, does a quick mental inventory of what’s left to prepare for the night’s charity gala. Shakes her head. “No, I think we’re good. I’ve got some last minute things to wrap up and then just need to pick up my dress.”

She waves Monty off and refocuses to finish the table settings. Once done, Clarke double checks with the chef at the back of house that he has everything needed then rushes off uptown to the boutique shop her mother had arranged her fitting.

It was the sole point of contention she conceded to Abigail Grosvenor Griffin—that if Clarke intends to be absent for the majority of the Upper East’s high society calendar then she could at least put in the effort for her one appearance of the year. Although the kindest and most progressive single parent Clarke could ask for, six generations of old oil money ingrained in Abby an unflappable dedication to keeping up appearances. Clarke annually humours her mother’s vanity for the trade-off of enjoying an independent life and career far away from the glitz and glamour of Waldorf Astoria and the snobs of the Gold Coast.

(“Clarke, honey, you can live poor for 364 days, but please, you don’t have to look it in front of the Kanes and Jahas. Have some compassion for your aging mother. These people only exist to flaunt their ostensible wealth. Allow me one tiny flaunting of my only child.”)

Rushing into the shop Clarke doesn’t notice the motorbike parked on the curb. After hasty pleasantries with the shop owner—an old family friend fond of small talk and oversharing about so-and-so’s romantic entanglements—Clarke is in the dressing room, knee deep in sequins and wrestling with a dress that probably costs more than her entire staff’s yearly wages combined. She plans to auction it by evening’s close to buy a decade’s worth of infant formula.

Unfortunately, the dress comes out the victor, Clarke unable to determine where the neck and armhole openings begin and end. The zipper somehow gets stuck in her hair, her head caught in layers of tafetta. Clarke is trapped in gold baroque detailing.

“Mrs Marple?” Clarke inquires, raising her voice and hoping the shop owner’s hearing aid is turned on.

A quiet chuckle is the answer.

“Need any help with that?”

Relieved for the assistant to arrive, Clarke nods vigorously. Gentle hands make swift work of fasteners and fabric. Vision impaired and hearing somewhat compromised while at the mercy of a patient stranger, Clarke tries to navigate the embarrassing situation with humour, quipping, “These things should really come with warning labels and a map.”

The owner of the voice laughs and it’s pretty. Something oddly familiar sounding.

“It’s why I prefer tuxes. Their instruction manual is much slimmer.”

On a soft touch to her waist and a firm pull of the zipper, the dress falls into place, draping over Clarke’s body with a swoosh. Pleats and ruffles billow with dramatic flare to the floor.

Clarke turns, ready to thank her saviour, only to be greeted by the sight of a thirty-thousand dollar, dark blue Italian suit wearing an old smile as vintage as the couture bowtie completing the outfit. Her heart skips. Her jaw drops.

“Lexa?”

“Hi, Clarke.”

In front of Clarke stands her childhood friend, looking absolutely drop dead gorgeous. Tall, lean, mature and the definition of attractive. Sartorially resplendent.

Before another word can be exchanged Mrs Marple comes bumbling back into the room with an armful of accessories.

“Oh, Ms Griffin you look lovely!” She exclaims, dropping her haul on a bank of plush cushioned seats in the centre. Her awed expression brightens when she turns to take in the beautiful figure next to Clarke, delight and volume doubling. “You too, Ms Woods. Oh my, the two of you are stunning.” She approaches them, shuffling forward and pushing at both like a mother hen pecking until they’re stood closer together. “It’s like your cotillion again! You always did make a handsome couple.”

Clarke blushes a deep red, the colour running from her open chest up her neck and to her cheeks at an alarming speed.

“I know the very thing.”

Mrs Marple leaves as quick as she entered, moving at a surprising clip for a lack of compactness.

“So ...” Lexa starts, smile not having left. “It’s been awhile.”

“Sixteen years to be exact.” Not since their debutante at the City National Ballet.

“You look nice.” Lexa’s eyes roam appreciatively before landing back to lock gazes. Soft and warm and so very green.

“You too,” is all that Clarke manages after being caught completing her own once over. “What are you—”

The rest of her question falls away.

Mrs Marple returns with two identical small bunches of flowers. Ahead of any verbal protests, shushing and tutting, she slips the corsage and boutonniere on each, only stepping back once satisfied with her handiwork.

Lexa steals a glance over the head of grey hair and gives Clarke a wink. The remainder of Clarke’s fitting is characterised by such silent exchanges as she and Lexa share fleeting looks and ask unspoken questions while the shop owner takes their measurements and makes her adjustments. The buzz of her harried movements not unlike the butterfly activity in Clarke’s stomach.

“Thank you Mrs Marple,” Clarke says, gathering the bottom of the gown into one hand three quarters of an hour later. “I’m sorry to cut it short but there’s a small fire I need to rush back to put out at the ballroom before the guests arrive.” Although the words are addressing the shop owner, she looks forlorn over her shoulder to Lexa, regret in her gaze and an apology on her tongue with a tacit promise to reach out soon.

“Of course, dear. Do tell your mother I said hello.”

”I will, she’ll be very pleased with the result. The fit is perfect. The cut is exquisite, you’ve outdone yourself yet again.” Clarke piles on the compliments as she toes backward towards the entrance door aiming to exit without further delay.

Earlier, just as Lexa was about to pull her aside and speak to her privately, Monty had called panicked about an unaccounted-for shortage of champagne, a minor but worrying emergency given how short purse strings are tied to alcohol availability.

To be honest, Clarke had forgotten about the gala after the unexpected encounter with Lexa. Distracted wondering what she’s been up to, why she’s here, and where she’s headed looking like an Armani model.

The thoughts follow her outside. She squints into the setting sun, eyes peeled for a yellow cab, double guessing her earlier decision to dismiss her mother’s driver out of—in Abby’s words— _a tragically misguided commitment to humility_.

Stepping off the sidewalk, Clarke’s arm is raised prepared to wave down a taxi when a hand gently lowers it.

“I can give you a ride.”

Lexa tilts her head to the motorbike. Clarke looks on dumbfounded, then back down at the pair of them, fully decked in suit and gown.

“It’s not that different from my bicycle, a bit more horsepower maybe,” Lexa eggs on, not seeing the same problem.

Clarke wants to argue that riding on Lexa’s handlebar when they were thirteen is vastly different than mounting a death machine at thirty-two, but then Monty is texting her again, this time about shrimp cocktail. His meltdown is more stressful than the actual seafood crisis.

Without a word, Clarke hikes her dress higher and climbs onto the back of the bike. Lexa places her helmet on Clarke’s head, brushing her hair back to fit it over.

Clarke holds her breath the entire time. Lexa lowers the visor on the soft reassurance,

“I’ll go slow.”

—

“Fuck, Lexa. _Faster_.”

This is not slow. Lexa does not in fact go slow at all. The complete opposite of it.

“You feel amazing.”

Clarke bites down on her shoulder, not disagreeing as Lexa pumps in and out of her. They had stopped for gas and one thing led to another and before Clarke could count her spare change for a packet of menthos, the sexual tension snapped; her leg was hooked around Lexa’s waist, the ruffles of her gown bunched up and her underwear pushed aside as Lexa fucked her inside the gas station restroom.

If only high society could see them now.

Clarke blames it on the vibrations of the motorcycle as Lexa weaved in and out of traffic. With arms tightly wound around Lexa’s midsection, the proximity and warmth and the smell of expensive cologne practically guaranteed that something would happen at the pitstop.

Lips raw from kissing, hands numb from where they deathly grip onto broad shoulders, all sensation is concentrated between her legs as the girl with whom she was once madly in love—the best friend with whom she lost her virginity—is thrusting with singleminded intent.

“So warm, so wet,” Lexa pants hotly in her ear, causing both claims to become truer statements. “God, it’s even better than I remembered.”

Overstimulated and currently preoccupied with preventing her knees from buckling out from under her, Clarke doesn’t question Lexa’s decade and a half intact memory. Her focus is on the length and thickness of two fingers splitting her open and driving her towards ecstasy.

It’s been so long, Clarke had almost forgotten what an orgasm is. Lexa’s commitment to wrenching every moan and mewl and minor noise out of her is an effective refresher.

“Mhm close,” Clarke croaks into the humid space of their mouths, a breathless warning after Lexa resumes their kissing and starts sucking on her tongue.

In response, Lexa’s fingers increase their tempo. But then, Lexa disappears under a mountain of taffeta and Clarke would have collapsed had her free hand not anticipated the reaction, holding her back solidly by the hip. Lexa’s tongue joins the work of industrious fingers, broadly swiping around Clarke’s folds, laving up the overflow of arousal in eager passes. Its attention shortly turns to her clit, pulling it gently into a seeking mouth, then takes up a rhythm of stroking and sucking.

Clarke’s hands fly to Lexa’s head, hips bucking and canting before she abandons any semblance of restraint, essentially riding Lexa’s face.

Between Lexa’s fingers, tongue and the obscene sounds of their efforts, Clarke comes hard. She spills onto Lexa’s mouth and hand, the runoff trailing down her ripped pantyhose and ruined panties.

Lexa emerges from the gown rosy cheeked and with pupils completely blown, looking blissful and so incredibly kissable that Clarke pulls her up to desperately rejoin their mouths. They melt into this slower intimacy. She tastes herself and the vestiges of boarding school love. Gets carried away by memories of Hampton summers and garden parties and private jet getaways. Gets lost in lakeside skinny dips and fireside chats over an endless run of Moët.

As they change angle, this kiss is steeped in yesteryear, an indulgence in a different life trajectory, runaways broke as a bottle of wine but rich in love, all before family legacies caught up and personal dreams set aside led to an amicable separation and hopeful but ultimately unkept promises to stay in touch.

Soon the kiss turns into a second round, Lexa unbuckling her trousers, turning Clarke around and bending her over the sink as she grinds herself against Clarke’s ass. She enters Clarke from behind and together they set a merciless rhythm, a push and pull drawing sound after sound from each other until the edge nears again.

Lexa is mumbling something into her back but Clarke doesn’t catch the words.

“Wait, wait,” Clarke enjoins and winds a hand behind to get Lexa’s attention, squeezing whatever she finds. It turns out to be Lexa’s ass, which causes her mid thrust to stutter and her fingers to hit the back of Clarke’s walls at a particularly pleasurable angle, making Clarke whimper. Lexa repeats the motion several times. Clarke’s mouth is dry when she remembers to finish her thought, “Say that again. Please.”

Without stopping, Lexa pants, “I’ve missed you.”

The admission—its tenderness more than anything of their rough and hurried coupling—makes Clarke wetter.

“Harder, Lex,” Clarke demands when Lexa sounds like she might lose focus to sentimentality, pressing back against the pistoning hand to keep her on target.

Lexa ruts into her, and does listen, fucking Clarke harder. They climax together right after Lexa’s thumb rubs her clit with fevered urgency. It’s unlikely the gas station attendant doesn’t hear their mutual cries. Anyone in the tri-state area who misses Clarke’s scream would have to be hard of hearing.

Lexa turns her back around and kisses her deeply, working Clarke through the shudders of a smaller third orgasm. They continue to kiss for a long while.

“Hi, again,” Lexa says when they break apart. She smiles, staring into Clarke’s eyes.

“Hi.” Clarke returns, tucking the flyaways of Lexa’s hair back behind her ear. An old habit, Clarke wipes the smudge of lipstick from the corner of Lexa’s mouth with the pad of her thumb. Somehow the move feels more intimate than what they were just doing.

“Still a devastating kisser, I see,” Lexa comments, tongue poking out to catch Clarke’s retreating thumb. The slow suckling as much as the sustained lustful eye contact causes the red tips of Clarke’s ears to go redder. Lexa lets go with a satisfying pop on noticing her effect.

“Still smugly charming, I see,” she banters. The quip spreads Lexa’s lips wider, rewarding Clarke with a breathy laugh.

Clarke playfully scowls before turning attention to primping herself into a semblance of decent.

“Abby is going to be so mad at you.” Lexa muses, chuckling.

“What, why?” Clarke asks while stepping out of her underwear then chucking it in the nearby bin. Her panties are no use now.

With a deadpan expression, Lexa wiggles her fingers then looks pointedly down at Clarke’s gown to where there are distinct areas that have extra shine from her groping while they were making out.

Clarke’s phone rings on cue. She sends the call to voicemail, groaning at the time noted.

“Speaking of the devil,” she says, waving the mobile as evidence, “we better go.”

—

They park a block away from the MET. Clarke stands between Lexa’s legs, who is leaned back against her bike. She puts her phone away into her purse after shooting Monty a text.

_Sorry, got held up. Just pulled around the corner, be right there._

“So...” Clarke says, hooking arms around Lexa’s neck. Lexa pulls her in closer by the waist.

“So,” Lexa answers, amusement sitting at the corner of her lips. Grinning with far too much self-congratulatory appeal.

“Thanks for the ride.” Clarke regrets the words as soon as they’re out. She groans, letting her head fall down on Lexa’s shoulder when the pretty smile turns into a hearty laugh. She mutters, “Don’t answer that.”

Lexa ignores her. “You’re very welcome. Believe me, it was my pleasure.”

Clarke glares at her but there’s no bite. Lexa kisses her on the nose. It feels like old times, Clarke a teenager again sneaking out with her rich rebel girlfriend.

“I’ve missed you, too,” she says, a belated answer. They drink each other in but several silent beats later, Clarke bites her bottom lip, fighting the butterflies to ask, “What now?”

“You still have the same number?”

“While I’m in town, yeah.”

“How long?”

“For the rest of the week,” Clarke shares sadly, for the first time doubting the nomadic life of a philanthropist doctor working without borders. “Then it’s onto Malaysia.”

Lexa nods, looking thoughtful, doing unseen calculations. “Then I guess we’ll have to make the most of your time left.”

Although her tone is playful and suggestive, eyebrows waggling in keeping with the facade, Clarke reads the genuineness underneath. She fixes Lexa’s bowtie, which is perfect, then adjusts the lapel of her jacket, sweeping away invisible lint. She pats her on the chest. “Call me.”

Clarke steps back, wearing a rueful but hopeful smile they won’t lose touch. Not this time. Before another step can be taken, Lexa pulls her in again by the wrist. She surges forward to give Clarke one final kiss, slow and sinful and solemn with a vow.

“I will.”

In a daze, Clarke waves her goodbye. “I’ll see you later,” she whispers.

“See you inside.”

Clarke’s phone buzzes, likely Monty following up about her arrival. She is too much in a hurry to note Lexa’s parting words. She watches with a sad smile over her shoulder as Lexa revs up and takes off, then quickens her steps towards the building entrance. It isn’t until Clarke reads Monty’s reply as she opens the gala doors that their meaning hits.

_Don’t worry about it, situation handled. And you’re in luck. Told you that CEO was an asshole. Who shows up late to their own award ceremony? Take your time. Lexa Woods isn’t here yet.”_

It occurs to Clarke then, Lexa never asked her for the address but knew exactly where to take Clarke on her motorcycle.

*******

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title inspired by One Republic and Seeb's Rich Love. Thanks for reading! [@theproseofnight](https://theproseofnight.tumblr.com)


	2. young dumb and broke

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written to Khalid's Young Dumb & Broke.
> 
> Some feels crept in ... apologies to no one but my heart.

*******

“How was LA?”

“Hot, plastic.”

“How cliché,” Clarke remarks.

“I’m a cliché kind of girl.” Lexa throws back, smile cocksure and too pretty for her own good. “Rich, spoiled, had a few tantrum years, fell for a girl, wanted to run away with her, she chose saving babies instead. Broke my heart.”

Lexa’s bottom lip juts out. The exaggerated pout shouldn’t do anything for Clarke, it makes flips of her stomach anyway. She badly wants to run her thumb along the plumpness but lets Lexa have the floor and her dramatic moment to finish her sob story.

“Went to LA to lick my wounds. It was hot. The lawn chairs were plastic. Here we are.”

Clarke laughs. The condensed summary not quite how she remembers the past.

Despite her nonchalance, Lexa continues to stare up from the hotel bed like she can’t believe Clarke’s in the flesh in front of her after all these years. Her hand solid on Clarke’s waist seems a needed anchor to her realness, even after the evening they’ve had.

Coy looks and sly smiles were the night’s constant companions under copper lights and amidst the chocolate fountains as Clarke worked one half of the gala room and Lexa caught her eye while working the other half. Swept into the fray as soon as she entered the MET, there wasn’t an immediate chance to seek Lexa out. They didn’t talk at first, the acknowledgment only came when Lexa made her award speech and thanked the selection committee and the board, toasting to the apparent new partnership between Woods Inc and Clarke’s non profit organisation. Lexa held her gaze as she raised her flute in Clarke’s direction.

“To new beginnings among old friends,” had received enthusiastic applause from the mixed crowd of old and new money for the return home of New York City’s two prodigal daughters.

Abby beamed proud at them both, making Clarke wonder if her meddling mother had anything to do with the surprise guest. She neither denied nor confirmed it when Clarke inquired, a hushed conversation to the side of the ballroom.

“Clarke, darling, it’s not my fault you don’t read quarterly statements or the family newsletter.”

“Mom, _dearest_ , you and I are the only two members of this family. You’re lucky I’m even still subscribed.”

“Then you should know we’re having dinner with the Woods the night before you leave.”

Abby had walked away, all elegance and blue blood entitlement to having the last word, before Clarke could finish narrowing her eyes.

A sudden waft of Lexa’s cologne had prevented her from chasing after her mother for more details. Then a soft but firm hand was on her lower back, guiding her through tucked corridor after corridor until they ended up in the deserted Ancient Greek and Roman exhibit.

“Lexa, what are you—”

Lexa was kissing her before her opened mouth had a chance to form the rest of the question. Clarke whimpered, hands fisting into black velvet. With heels on, she was closer to Lexa in height and the angle of their fit better for it, helped along by the needy hold of Lexa’s hand to the back of her neck.

The museum is kept at a climatically optimal temperature for the art but suddenly it felt hotter than the Etruscan sun two display cases over.

“Best thing I’ve tasted all night,” Lexa hummed against her lips.

“What are you doing here?” Clarke asked once they unstuck, leapfrogging past her pun. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I thought you knew.”

“How would I know?”

“My appointment was announced in the last quarterly.”

“Pfft,” Clarke bristled. “Who reads those excel charts anyway?”

“CEOs of Fortune 500 companies.”

Lexa grins, charmed by Clarke’s unchanged indifference to the financial nuts and bolts of the world underwriting the evening’s activities.

Good point. Clarke may have to reconsider her disinterest in earnings reports if the news always came delivered like that.

“Still, you could’ve mentioned something.”

“I don’t like mixing business with pleasure.” At Clarke’s displeased scowl, Lexa laughed.

Clarke shut her up with a kiss, drawing the laughter into her mouth, sinking teeth into Lexa’s bottom lip hard enough to earn a satisfying hiss.

The rest of the charity event went by in a blur of stolen kisses, Clarke not remembering whose hands she shook, only the one imprinted on her lower back that weaved them through crowds of the well-to-do toward secret passages and secret makeouts intermittent between speeches and toasts and auctions. Like a callback to their teenage years, escaping to dark rooms and secluded corners and cigar-thick closets, hidden by expensive furs to have her first kiss at ten with her best friend out of boredom; and then a second kiss at sixteen in the cloister of their boarding school past curfew, deeper and more toe-curling and _huh_ -inspiring; and then the hundredth kisses by eighteen up on rooftops, the city below their kingdom, the midnight sky above their starry map, head over heels in love.

The kisses were steeped also in the sought-out comfort of their early twenties when adulthood and a less forgiving coming of age scuffed against red-bottom shoes.

There was a certain thrill to acting two thirds or half their age again while gliding across travertine floors in hundred thousand dollar gown and suit and seeking out shadows to find lips stained in champagne cuvée.

They had snagged a bottle of Krug and snuck out of the gala once dessert canapés and cocktails started coming out, Lexa having something else in mind. On Clarke’s protest that she still needed to schmooze with the donors to fill the coffers, Lexa pulled out her check book and wrote an obscene number down, patted it against Monty’s chest, “that should cover it”, then grabbing Clarke’s hand, fled through the gilded doors, leaving her assistant gold fishing at the donation. Clarke’s hotel room was not far around the corner, so Lexa’s bike was left behind in favour of a brisk walk with laughter carrying them along the entire way.

The elevator ride wasn’t fast enough and one oblivious occupant sharing the same cubic space was all that kept their hands to themselves.

Quick and dirty intermingled with slow and soft as tux and taffeta were discarded once they stumbled into the suite. Lexa had far more trouble helping Clarke get her dress off than she did hours earlier to get it on. Making swift work proved difficult with lust-compromised hands that wanted to be everywhere all at once. The back of the door and the arm of the settee took the brunt of Lexa’s impatience as she abandoned her disrobing efforts and let instincts take over guided by the nose of heavy scented arousal. By the end of a rigorous round three, Clarke fell back on the bed sweaty and spent and sore.

After a long _solo_ shower, she now stands in between Lexa’s legs at the bed’s edge, hair damp and dripping. Heart reverent and racing.

Lexa unties her bathrobe, a slow, deliberative move, pulling Clarke in by the waist with one hand, the other cupping at her jaw in clear want. The kiss is surprisingly gentle for how Lexa’s intense eye contact since she reentered the room and up until their lips met had promised otherwise. Something much rougher than this sweetness.

“What brought you back to this coast?” Clarke asks, falling back into the conversation at hand as she falls into Lexa’s seated lap, knees planting down on either side of her waist.

Naked save for the tuxe jacket still unnecessarily on, Lexa looks ridiculously hot. The open front revealing glistened, tan skin, a bronze colour that’s presumably layers of idleness on the deck of her private yacht placidly circling the waters of the Pacific.

Lexa rubs her thighs, a leisurely lazy pattern back and forth, similarly preoccupied with the accessible nudity, gaze monitoring the rise of goosebumps with scientific focus. Engrossed by the experiments of increasingly bolder fingertips travelling higher and higher.

When she looks back up there’s a startling depth to the shine of green. Clarke swallows at heir intensity.

“You.”

It’s a line but Clarke’s heart thumps all the same.

The facade of Lexa’s serious expression is given away by the twitch of the corner of her lips unsuccessfully fighting a smile.

“You’re such a bullshitter.” Clarke slaps her on the shoulder. If she wasn’t busy blushing and averting that heated gaze she might have noticed the mirrored blush that says Lexa is not joking. “C’mon, tell me. Last I heard, you had pled allegiance to kale smoothies and started your own wellness blog.”

The transplanted Angeleno fakes offence to the exaggeration. “And those aren’t stereotypes?”

“You’re right, I _can’t imagine_ you in a juice bar,” Clarke deadpans, taking a subtle dig at Lexa’s healthy eating habits. Smiling, she inclines her head in challenge. Patiently waits. “So, why the change?“

“K, fine. It was Anya, _and_ you.”

“One, what does your sister have to do with this? I thought she was in Europe. Two, how’d you know I’d even be in town?”

“One, she yelled at me. Two, I’ve been keeping tabs.”

Clarke immediately zones in on the latter info, tucks the former away for later interrogating. One eyebrow raised, she asks,

“You’ve been keeping tabs on me?”

“More like corporate reconnaissance and mild interest in how my stocks are doing,” Lexa answers, obfuscating, pushing the top of the bathrobe off one shoulder. She nuzzles into the hollow space where it meets Clarke’s neck, grazing in soft passes, kissing up and down the column, collecting droplets and leaving wet trails.

The damp sensation travels southward, settling solidly between Clarke’s legs. It restarts the fire in her lower belly that never actually went out.

“Seeing as I’m not a publicly traded option, that’s a little impossible.” Clarke is finding speaking suddenly difficult as Lexa starts to suck on her pulse point.

Lexa follows the wet path to the curve of her jaw before terminating with her tongue inside Clarke’s month. They both moan into the champagne aftertaste.

“What about a privately traded one?”

“What do you have in mind?” Clarke needlessly asks as Lexa nips and noses her way back down toward the top of her breasts, pushing more of the terry cloth aside and opening the shawl collar wider. Clearly, what’s on Lexa’s mind is how much of Clarke’s fullness she can wrap her lips around, how much of her tongue can cause wreckage. More orgasms are the obvious ROI but Clarke barters nonetheless, “I live in a tent for nine tenths of the year. I’m not really persuaded by the finer things in life other than a good mosquito net and maybe a burger in Tribeca that I’ve been dreaming about ever since Zaitzeff closed. What could you _possibly_ offer me that I don’t already have with my filthy wealth that I voluntarily shun?”

Lexa answers by lying back on the bed and pulling Clarke with her on top, nudging until she’s hovering above Lexa’s face.

“No deal.” Lexa shakes her head. There’s a mischievous glint in her eyes as she locks their gazes. Clarke’s thighs tremble in anticipation. “I’d rather eat the rich.”

 _Ugh_.

The groan dies in her throat when Lexa takes a broad swipe.

—

“Really, tell me about LA.”

“You first, tell me about Phnom Penh.” Lexa pops a grape into her mouth and presses one against Clarke’s lips. “Cambodia, right?”

They are rearranged on the bed against the headboard, a tray of room service fruits and goods between them. Clarke nods, accepting the grape. Distractedly indulges in licking Lexa’s fingers before answering.

“Yeah, that was my last post before coming here. The doctors and nurses are amazing there. This group of midwives we worked with could run circles around the NICU interns at Johns Hopkins, for a fraction of the equipment available.”

“I bet.” Lexa wagers, looking at Clarke with admiration. “Hopefully tonight’s haul will help on the supply side of things.”

Clarke hums appreciation and goes on to tell her about the work she and her team have been doing. With Lexa as an attentive listener, it’s easy to lose track of time and how long she speaks. The inviting green and its forest warmth compels her to say more.

When the conversation rounds back to Lexa, the tenor shifts. She grows quieter, her gaze more subdued.

“LA was lonely,” Lexa admits, her eyes and index finger finding interest in the thread count of the bed sheet. An unvoiced sadness colours their movements. Not one for self-pity, she shrugs a second later, shaking it off. “Busy with work.”

“What, all work and no play with those models and actresses around?” Clarke teases, nudges at her knee, keeping things light though an unbidden sting of jealousy does flare in her chest picturing the arm candy. “That _Costia_ girl looks like she could keep the loneliness at bay.”

Lexa lifts an eyebrow, surprise writ on her face and something else unreadable, but recovers quickly to mask with a joke, smile back on. “Oh, look who’s keeping tabs now, huh?”

“They have something called the internet overseas,” Clarke scoffs, pushing at her shoulder. “And it’s hard to avoid press about Hollywood’s darling, even half way across the world.”

It was one brief look at a local schoolboy’s Instagram, while advising his pregnant mother about prenatal vitamins, that her stomach dropped. Obsessed with Hollywood films and starlets, he was obliviously chatting with her about his favourite onscreen heroine, pausing momentarily on one particular image on his mobile that Clarke had the misfortunate to finally pay attention to. Lexa wasn’t identifiable in the candid photograph, face out of frame as the camera focused instead on the famous figure stepping out from the town car, but Clarke recognised the signature Woods cuff links on the wrist where the actress’s hand was placed for support. The glimpse of wavy brown hair and a familiar jawline, partial as it was, confirmed the reason for her heart’s skipped beat.

In ten years, that picture was the closest Clarke came to laying eyes on Lexa since a tear-filled goodbye at JFK when they were each destined for opposite ends of the globe. Texts petered out after the first months apart and time zones made face time difficult so a slow fading away had been the best course of action to take, mutually agreeing to keep memories intact, letting the past retain its sephia edges and leaving the future a soft focus, _maybe someday_.

Clarke doesn’t care much for salacious headlines in general but after the sighting she did wonder what specifically of the reporting of Lexa’s time in Los Angeles that Abby off-handedly comments on during their Skype calls is true or false. She had learned to mostly block out her mother’s diatribes about the press, and out of self-preservation, she’d also learned to filter out mentions of Lexa because it hurt too much in the beginning of their separation to hear about her without having a direct line to the source for verification. So, wilfully, knowledge of Lexa’s girlfriends had been a blessed blind spot up until that point.

In a moment of weakness and after one too many Tiger beers later that night, reliant on the strength of the least reliable broadband signal, Clarke went down the rabbit hole of Costia’s Instagram. Playing the celebrity game of cat and mouse with public interest into private lives, Costia’s meticulously curated feed of the aesthetically superior features a ‘gal pal’ who’s never confirmed and is always _just_ out of view, yet, whose non-face shows up more often than the revolving door cameos of the rich and infamous.

Clarke finally clicked out of her self-flagellating stupor when a cropped selfie showed a pair of piercing green eyes staring right back at her. There’s only so much yearning tolerable in 80% humidity. She hasn’t been on social media since.

“Not everything online is true,” Lexa comments, incidentally keying into Clarke’s internal monologue. “She’s a nice girl despite whatever the tabloids print.” Lexa looks down, doesn’t say more but Clarke reads a closed-off history there that she’s not sure she wants to pry open. A debate seems to be going on behind gnawing lips about further revelations, but ultimately, Lexa settles on merely disclosing, “A good friend.”

Given their current state of undress, it’s unlikely that Lexa and Costia are still together, if they were to begin with, unless Costia is a very understanding girlfriend. Nonetheless, it’s a relief to know. Yet as comforting as the confirmation is, Clarke wonders why she even cares. Her tryst with Lexa has a firm expiry date, she has to remind herself. It’s best to think of it under the limited terms and conditions of releasing sexual tension than to travel down the messy road of expectations.

“I’m sure Costia is lovely,” Clarke tells her, offering a genuine smile.

Putting the food away on the side table, Lexa lies down on her side, gesturing for Clarke to do the same, facing each other.

“She is,” Lexa says, nodding against her palm that’s holding up her head. With her other hand, fingers skate along Clarke’s hip, over her ribs, and to the underside of her breast then back. Apparently done with the meddling into her personal life. “This is also lovely.”

“Having fun?” Clarke squeaks when Lexa palms her breast, fondling, on the return journey.

The roving hand stills. Lexa’s face flashes odd at her word choice before schooling to indifference, patent Upper East Side ennui. She resumes her thumbing of Clarke’s nipple to remark, “Mhm-hmm, I’m having a good time, aren’t you? Unattached, mind-blowing sex between childhood-turned-college sweethearts, what’s not fun?”

It’s for the best but Clarke can’t help the disappointment to find Lexa on the same page about what they’re doing.

“A winning formula,” she concedes. Clarke pivots the conversation back to her initial query, persisting. “So, pretty girls and palm trees not enough to keep you in the Golden State?”

“I miss the gossiping of the Gold Coast too much to stay away any longer,” Lexa quips, the deflection obvious. When Clarke squeezes her side to insist on a real answer, she sighs. Gaze distancing to some faraway thought. “It was time I grew up. Take up the family mantle, give Anya a break from her bi-annual screaming at my life choices. Apparently, being _young, dumb and broke_ isn’t a career path, not with our last name and the mortgages of 300,000 employees to pay. She aggressively disagrees with Khalid. _A pining bachelorette past your 30s is not cute, Lexa_.”

Clarke chuckles at the air quoted impersonation and the elder Woods tough love routine.

She observes Lexa then. Her lines have matured. There’s a more pronounced crease between her eyebrows and less baby fat in her face that make cheekbones stand out strikingly. But the pads of fingers that are now tracing her sternum and practising writing signatures onto warm skin— _don’t laugh Clarke, when we’re old we have to sign important papers_ —is a habit that hasn’t aged. Clarke can’t reconcile this softness with the person Monty describes as a ruthless negotiator with an excoriating temper and little patience for boardroom antics. She can’t get past sticky fingers and humid days in Martha’s Vineyard sharing split popsicles, and a toothless smile that consoled Clarke when she dropped her half onto the boardwalk.

“I wasn’t exactly slacking in LA,” Lexa continues, disclosing, “but coming home was overdue.” She smiles, a gentle pull, staring into Clarke’s eyes. “There was good reason.”

The meaningful look carries the same softness as when she let Clarke have the rest of her popsicle then left an orange tang kiss on a teary cheek and soothed, _S’okay, Klark_.

Clarke reaches up and tucks a strand of Lexa’s hair behind her ear. She cups her cheek and lays a soft peck to the corner of her mouth. Lexa of course chases her lips for something fuller, deeper.

The interrogation is forgotten as Clarke gets lost in the slide of their mouths and the slide of Lexa’s hand inside her bathrobe, negotiating for open skin. Not ruthless so much as disarmingly effective, Clarke deems her trade skills.

“I’m glad you came back,” she says softly, after they come up for air.

“Me too.” Lexa moves on top, slowly grinding against Clarke as she not so slowly kisses her. “Since we’re both back,” she says between shortening breaths, repeating a version of the suggestion made outside of the MET, “let’s make the best use of the schedule overlap and not waste our time.”

Despite the big talk and the width of a smile that could hang the moon, Lexa ends up falling soundly asleep, head on Clarke’s chest, the valiant effort to reignite things—a round of dry humping that leaves Clarke’s mouth dry—retires on light snoring.

“I wish we had more,” Clarke whispers, closing her eyes and drifting off.

—

A ringing sound blares. Startles Clarke awake.

Clocking the source as the hotel phone, Clarke groans and hides her head under the pillow to muffle the annoyance out. Wills it to go away.

It stops.

She sighs at the blissful silence, ready to fall back to sleep.

It rings again.

Resigning, Clarke grabs at the handset, pushes out a gruff, “There better be babies dying, Monty.”

“Sorry to bother you Ms Griffin, this is George from reception calling on behalf of Ms Woods,” a seasoned voice in a faded English accent comes through the receiver that decidedly does not belong to her assistant whom she barred from calling her post-gala unless the world is ending or there’s a sudden spike in infant mortality.

“Lexa?”

Clarke turns her head expecting to find the muss of curls with which she went to bed, only to grope at nothing on the other side. It’s empty.

Her momentary panic is eased by the concierge’s reply.

“Uh, yes. Ms Woods forgot her phone in your suite and has asked if you could bring it and, I quote, verbatim per her specific instructions,” George clears his throat, “your beautiful ass downstairs. Your chariot awaits.”

Clarke chuckles and thanks George, hanging up with a stupid grin and a more measured acquiescence to be there shortly.

“Oh, and Ms Griffin? Do wear something comfortable.”

She takes longer than promised and puts in more effort getting ready than will admit, unfathomably wanting to look good to humour Lexa’s spontaneous plans.

No amount of prepping could’ve prepared Clarke for the sight waiting by the curb once she stepped outside the hotel doors.

Lexa is casually leaning against her bike, head bowed sipping on a takeaway cup of coffee, feet kicked out in front of her and crossed at the ankle. A loose grey tee tucked in at the top of ripped, dark washed jeans so tight they’re almost a second skin, and a vintage leather jacket, match with the subtle midnight hue of the motorcycle’s titanium body. She looks to be ripped from the pages of some rider magazine. Her hair is waves of sex appeal raked in morning sun highlighting a gorgeously sloped nose and swollen, kiss-bruised lips.

Propped up by a machine that likely registers in the mid six figures, Lexa looks exclusive and exquisite in a different way than last night’s tailored elegance. An all-black brooding tempest that’s spilled over into dappled daylight.

On noticing Clarke, she breaks into an electric smile, the storm clears. “I’d offer you one,” Lexa greets, wiggling the empty cup in show, “but you took too long, so I drank yours too,” then tosses it into the nearest trash bin.

“How long have you been up?” Clarke asks.

Lexa shrugs but with the bike in her possession again and by her change of clothes, which she had to have gone home to do, it must have been awhile.

Instead of answering, Lexa reaches behind on the seat then holds out an extra helmet and beckons Clarke forward with old words, “Wanna get out of here?”

The familiar prompt has gotten them into way too much trouble before that Clarke reflexively crosses her arms and narrows her eyes in suspicion, halting any intention to approach. Lexa laughs, putting her hands up in surrender to show no tricks up her sleeves.

“Hey, just a catch-up between old friends.”

“We caught up plenty last night and in the restroom yesterday.”

Against better judgment, she takes a few cautious steps forward.

Lexa nods, agreeing, but is undeterred, pulling Clarke in the last remaining inches by the belt loop to stand between her legs. She wraps arms around her waist, hands hanging behind Clarke’s back, the helmet resting against her butt.

“Good morning,” Lexa says. She palms Clarke’s ass, an exaggerated search before plucking her mobile from the back pocket. “Thanks.”

She leaves it at that and makes no apparent move to do anything else. Not even the kiss that Clarke was expecting as a negotiation tactic. Her eyes merely trace Clarke’s features, content to draw them with her gaze, Clarke’s beauty mark above her lip the starting and end point of her roaming.

Locked in place, Clarke can’t do anything but stare back in a silent game of chicken. It doesn’t help that long fingers patiently tap against her backside. Clarke blushes thinking of where they’ve been. It’s highly doubtful this is the kind of pressure Lexa applies to competitors during business dealings—soulful penetration—but it works.

“Ok, fine, let’s go.”

Clarke drops her arms. It’s not as if she has something important like a global charity to run.

Lexa whoops at her concession, pumping the helmet in the air. The triumphant grin is annoyingly charming.

The ride is peaceful and scenic. The bike hums competently beneath them. Clarke feels safe, arms wrapped around Lexa, pressed in close, taking in the scenery. The city gives way to tree-lined small towns until population density dwindles to the hundreds rather than millions. She understands why comfortable clothing was a requisite. 120 miles later, Montauk comes into view.

“I know this isn’t Tribeca and it’s not Zaitzeff, but the sliders here are to die for,” Lexa says, dismounting and pointing to the food truck overlooking the waves of the beach town.

Clarke doesn’t answer right away, distracted by the volume of hair spilling out of the helmet as Lexa shakes her head to loosen the curls.

“Three hours for a burger??” She asks in disbelief after her own helmet is off, once Lexa’s previously un-communicated itinerary sinks in.

She hadn’t paid attention to the overhead road signs nor noticed their cruising speed lowering significantly once they veered off the expressway after a pit stop at Manorville. The open road and their shared body warmth had lulled her into accepting whatever destination Lexa had in mind.

Lexa helps her down. Clarke’s legs feel like jello and her ass is pins and needles numb. She has to swat incorrigible hands away, laughing, when Lexa starts rubbing at her behind for better blood circulation trying to be additionally helpful.

“You said you’ve been dreaming about one, and this is the best one in the whole state.”

“All of New York?” Clarke challenges. Lexa firmly nods, confident, and takes her hand leading the way to the parked vehicle, a yellow monstrosity with no regard for subtlety. “That’s a big claim,” she says, while staring warily at the hand painted signage.

_You’ve reached the End, but at least you died eating the best burger._

It’s not the most comforting endorsement but Clarke appreciates the pun on “the End,” as locals call this sleepy enclave at the easternmost point of Long Island.

After Lexa orders a ridiculous amount of food from the muscled trucker, they sit on the beach, on branded mats at a designated area on the sand reserved for The End Burgers customers.

After the first bite, Clarke refuses to admit Lexa and the signage is right. It’s incredible. If Clarke _was_ to meet her untimely end, she’d want it to be at the hand of dry-aged beef, raw onion, melted cheddar, and Lincoln’s secret sauce.

Clarke doesn’t make eye contact as she devours the burger but does let Lexa kiss the sauce off of her lips. Lexa doesn’t overly gloat nor press for a victory lap, looking smugly content to count Clarke’s moan as a win.

“You know it distresses me to admit you’re right, stop grinning, please.”

Lexa laughs—a beautiful, breathy sound—and kisses her again. Open mouthed and rudely pleasant, it’s counterproductive to Clarke’s efforts at feigning detachment.

Thick cut fries and locally crafted microbrews absorb the pounder’s grease and keep their mouths busy from wanting to devour each other further.

It feels an awful lot like a date rather than a catch-up between old friends. They talk and laugh like it’s any reminiscent checkin of two people sharing stories about the lost years, but the hand holding and the kissing and _the looks_ are well beyond the bounds of platonic. The inescapably romantic being Lexa’s leather jacket wrapped around her shoulders.

With the first and oldest lighthouse in New York within sight and surf anglers popping in and out of view of the water, in addition to the majestic cliffs overlooking Dutch Plains and pristine, unspoiled beachfronts adding to the postcard setting, it’s an idyllic place to fall in love. Or to remember the feeling of it.

It’s why Clarke tries to stick to the platonic and the familial in their conversation to stray away from the romantic. A hookup is one thing, the way her heart speeds up when Lexa smiles at her is something else entirely.

“How’s Aden?”

“He’s good. They were in town for his birthday last month. He’s gotten so big.” Lexa pulls out her phone to show Clarke a picture.

“I’m sure Anya’s got her hands full. I don’t know how she handles a kindergartener and running an empire.”

“Maybe that’s why she’s mad all the time,” Lexa observes but there’s no real bite to the jab. Her smile tells Clarke she’s thinking of something endearing about her sister and nephew. “It’s not easy for any single working mom. The divorce wasn’t great but she’s with someone now who cares for them both deeply and isn’t a gold digger.”

Nia was a cold bitch, Clarke internally concurs, wondering what happened to her but knowing she’s a sore spot to ask for more info. Instead, she says, “Raven seems like a good match.”

Clarke had met Anya’s new partner and Aden at the same time a couple years back while running an errand for her mother during one of her bi-annual visits. The talkative duo made the encounter at the supermarket less awkward while Anya stood silently to the side giving Clarke a studying though not unkind look throughout the exchange. Something of her penetrating gaze might have explained Raven’s exclamation of _Oh, you’re Lexa’s Clarke!_ when their introductions were made, if Clarke didn’t also get thrown off by the toddler’s toothy grin that he was meeting, _Aunt Wexa’s best friend_ , somehow related to an undecipherable mention of story time.

Picturing the trio—a brunette and pair of blondes—Clarke feels a pang of wistfulness for a parallel future.

She softly adds, handing Lexa’s phone back, “They look happy.”

Lexa nods, then turns to appraise her. Her gaze is soft, made more tender by the freckles on her nose and cheeks arising from sustained exposure to the afternoon sun. It steals Clarke’s breath.

“Are you happy?” Lexa asks quietly.

The directness is unexpected. Her reflex is to say, _I’m happy right now_ , but that’s doubtful to satisfy the scope of Lexa’s question.

Lexa’s expectant look waiting on a response tells her there’s more to it, that maybe she too has been evaluating what they’re doing here together and what their parallel selves might be doing instead.

Clarke swallows, finishes the last bite and gathers their rubbish to throw out. The delay works to give her extra minutes to come up with an answer.

“Generally, I think so,” Clarke says, opting for the honesty route when she sits back down. She dusts her hands of crumbs. “I don’t get paid enough to afford a $30 burger but I can’t complain. I like being useful. Feeling like I’ve earned what I can put on the table at the end of the day instead of spending it counting the number of zeros in my bank account all because I won some random genetic lottery. I know I can’t fix the global income disparity but I can sure try one preemie baby at a time.”

Lexa makes a face.

“That’s just gross. Your morals are disgusting, babe.” Her nose crunches cutely in feigned judgment. Clarke pinks at the pet name. “Abby didn’t raise you right.”

“But Jake did,” Clarke laughs, defending her altruism. They both know her dad’s passing had sharpened the important things in life for Clarke; how she had conversely turned the grief of losing a parent into preventing the grief of losing a child. Lexa smiles, knowing and gentle. Clarke turns the table. “And you, the morally ambiguous, are you happy?”

“I’m trying to be,” Lexa answers, equally honest. While they’re now sated, the ocean laps hungrily at the shore, the late afternoon tide coming in. Her voice fades into contemplative quiet, pulled away by the waves.

Ageing has made for a calmer disposition than the usual swagger on display meant to deflect others from further prodding. Even after ten years, Clarke seems to be an exception to the facade Lexa puts on for everyone else. She squeezes Lexa’s thigh, smiling softly.

“What would make you happy?”

Intentional or not, Lexa’s gaze flickers down to her lips before it comes back up to her eyes for a held beat. She stares out at the ocean after, soft breaths expelling.

“Do you ever wonder if things were different?” Lexa answers obliquely after stretched out minutes. “If we tried harder ...”

It’s a leading question. The end of the sentence ‘to be together’ is implied.

Sat like this, Lexa’s heat radiating next to her, Clarke feels a deep-seated warmth she hasn’t in a long time, not since before they went separate ways to med school and business school. Various scenarios have crossed her mind, wondering if she’d stayed in the States instead of going international, or if they had given an earnest college try at long distance, whether they’d still be together, possibly married now, with or without children and have a top-floor condo in Gramercy; a second home in Montauk with a private beach for escapes from the city and weekends doused in pancake flour and sweet love made on the deck.

It happens less frequently in recent years than it did during the early days abroad but, occasionally, thinking about that un-pursued path has worked as her go-to happy place when the day is long and the night is hers alone, R.E.M. coming out of her earbuds, and she misses home. Misses Lexa badly. But then inevitably the next day, a newborn’s wail and a mother’s gratitude would bring her back to the present and re-affirm Clarke’s need to be elsewhere but by Lexa’s side or in the comfort of her arms.

It’s tempting to revisit her stance on running away, to go back and take back Lexa’s hurt when Clarke declined the offer which she thought had been made in jest and under the tinge of ember-eyed daydreaming. The two months living on empanadas and fire-side laughter the summer between high school and college when Lexa had joined her on her South American internship had certainly made a compelling case for subsisting on less, when sex and sunset chats were the only agenda outside the field clinic, when being fed and fine and filled with butterflies was enough. Lexa had withdrawn her “we can live on love” argument faster than Clarke could blink, laughing it off as a joke, but Clarke nonetheless saw the way her face fell. It took weeks for her smile to reach her eyes again.

It took four more years before the offer came back up, Clarke doing the asking during Spring Break of senior year and Lexa the one declining to abandon everything to follow her to the other side of the world, by then elbows deep in learning contract law and supply chain management. “We can’t survive on love,” was a marked change of tune against a background of looming expectations. Finals followed suit then graduation came and they were never the same after that last summer.

Their paths diverged, hearts split in two.

She can’t regret the fulfilling career carved from the fork in the road, but does wonder from time to time where a ‘yes’ at eighteen or twenty two would have taken them.

For the sake of living with life choices, Clarke doesn’t want to read too much into the romantic gestures and Lexa’s softness, nor her ruminating about alternative paths, as the possibility of a reconsideration; not if ‘catch up’ just means being caught up in the past, a nostalgic afternoon of hooky with her ex-girlfriend. Not if Clarke is leaving soon.

“All the time,” Clarke answers finally after an extended silence. On a hard swallow, gaze set firmly on the horizon, she expands, hoping her voice comes out steady, “But we’ve moved on. I’m happy and you’re on your way to happy. It’s better this way.” Because she’s not as confident as her statement sounds, Clarke adds, “Right?”

“Right.” Lexa nods, a quick agreement that is maybe too quick if Clarke were still engaged in wishful thinking, like she isn’t so sure either but needs the aloud affirmation.

Shaking off the somber mood, Lexa turns her head and dips in for a kiss. It’s so earnestly soft, so earnestly promising of an impossible more, Clarke’s toes curl in the sand.

”As long as I get to do _that_ while I still can, I’m fine with _this way_.”

On the sunset ride back into the city, Clarke feels a conflict of happy and sad that this is the path chosen.

As the odometer changes and the miles click by, a different countdown starts. 72 hours left on this road with Lexa until they arrive at an end Clarke is not sure she wants to reach this time.

Three more days.

*******

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more instalment after this :) [@theproseofnight](https://theproseofnight.tumblr.com)


	3. champagne kisses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written to Jessie Ware’s _Champagne Kisses_ (the acoustic version on [NPR’s Tiny Desk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJ-efUsAhc8)),
> 
> _Who’s fault is this_   
>  _That I’m crazy about you_   
>  _You are in every single dream_   
>  _And I’m thinking about you_   
>  _When there’s nothing left_   
>  _Except you and this_   
>  _Champagne kisses_
> 
> and Lorde's _Royals_
> 
> _That kind of lux just aint for us_   
>  _We crave a different kind of buzz_
> 
> Basically ... they’re gay and horny and peak soft. So very affectionate, okay?

*******

As it turns out, there isn’t much room for sad with the ungodly amount of sex Clarke has been having with Lexa. It not only makes up for months of dryness but has her wondering whether Lexa actually has a full time job or is just riffing off of her family name and title. It also leaves Monty without a boss and having to be her stand-in for meetings with investors on the flimsy excuse of Clarke catching the stomach bug from the gala shrimps.

In the three days left until her flight, they consummate on every surface of the hotel’s loft penthouse, Lexa upgrading Clarke’s quarters without consultation—and George as unwilling accomplice—making the executive decision that she needs a sturdier bed frame and no eavesdropping guests or neighbours in order to fuck Clarke ‘good and proper’.

It seems that Lexa’s search for happiness and her idea of an overseas sendoff involve trying to break Clarke and break their personal best record of number of orgasms until her name is screamed and rings across all of Manhattan’s rooftops.

Clarke would have laughed off her ambition but there’s nothing funny about Lexa’s relentless driving into her with the Amazon same-hour delivery dildo ‘for advanced users’, a dubious package claim that proves strikingly, breathlessly accurate. The only air Clarke has room for is panting and gasping as her lower half repeatedly hits the wall where Lexa has chosen to perform the latest product testing. Ass still not fully recovered from the bike ride, yet Clarke isn’t put out by Lexa’s ungentle handling. She just prays with how many Griffin shares are held in this hospitality chain that the hotel builder invested in thick enough drywall to withstand Lexa’s pummelling need to bang Clarke into the next borough.

“LA’s got nothing on you,” Lexa says, a belated conclusion to a previous conversation. “You’re way better than palm trees.”

“Lexa,” Clarke pants, holding back a laugh and a whimper to disapprove, “I’m not focused at the moment on the stupid east versus west coast rivalry.”

“Funny, I’m suddenly partial to all things south.”

Lexa gets her scream and Clarke gets a new appreciation for the penthouse’s structural integrity if not its Art Deco crown moulding opulence.

By some tacit agreement to keep feelings off the table, for the remainder of Clarke’s time stateside, they commit with furore to enjoying a hedonistic existence of food, drink, laughter, and orgasms, taking pleasure where and when they can. Like storing up for a long winter and the anticipated famine, they feast on a banquet of smiles.

Unable to stay away from each other even for a short while, this is how Clarke ends up in Midtown eighty storeys high among the skyscrapers. She had given Monty the day off and proceeded likewise to spend her last in the city indulging in its highlights.

One specific height in mind.

“So, you _do_ have a job,” Clarke says, grinning fondly at the hunched figure looking attentively over some figures.

She steps through the threshold, letting herself in despite the receptionist’s earlier attempt to uphold the CEO’s strict _no unscheduled visitors_ rule. Walking briskly past the flustered woman, Clarke waved her off and insisted that this particular visit will be a welcomed exception.

The expansive corner office is both as she had imagined it and not exactly. Clean modern lines, extremely well appointed bespoke furnishings, including a generous seating area and a fully stocked gold brass bar cart, coupled with a wall of books on one end and expensive art hanging on the other, are all to be expected of a contemporary workspace. What is not, is the picture frame among the personal mementos sitting on top of the oak sideboard; a photo taken a Christmas and lifetime ago.

“Clarke?” Lexa greets with surprise as she looks up from her desk.

Clarke lifts her gaze from the frame to the CEO. The crooked smiles of their younger selves atop the ski lift in the Swiss Alps are nearly a match with the one that breaks across Lexa’s face upon her entry. Saving the question about the photograph for later, she whistles lowly at the floor-to-ceiling glass view of Central Park when she finishes scanning the room.

“Nice digs.”

“What are you doing here? I thought we were meeting at the restaurant?” Lexa glances down at the Rolex on her wrist, eyebrows crunched in confusion. “Wait ... you’re six hours early.”

Clarke blushes, having not prepared an excuse for why she wanted to stretch every minute left with Lexa.

“Seeing as millions are on the line, I had to vet that you’re a legitimate enterprise.”

“Is that so?” Lexa asks, lips curling in amusement. She spins on her chair ready to rise to properly greet Clarke but is instead urged to remain seated as Clarke comes round, closing the distance.

Clarke bends down and tips her chin up for a hello cheek kiss, which is less cheek and more intently the corner of her mouth. _God_ , it hasn’t been that long since Lexa left Clarke sprawled in the hotel bed to look after a fiscal emergency, but she’s parched from the short absence and has to will her lips not to migrate the last inch over.

Lexa has no such restraint. She cups the back of Clarke’s neck and angles her head to fit their mouths together. With how many kisses they’ve exchanged, the feeling should be old hat by now but the bolt of electric pleasure that zips up her spine as Lexa’s tongue meets hers, newly makes Clarke’s knees go weak.

The hand on her back moves to her hip to steady her sway, keeping her from buckling. The other hand then lowers to her thigh, pushing at the hem of Clarke’s skirt. Lexa nudges, Clarke gets the hint. She adjusts and climbs onto Lexa’s lap.

“Did you put the fire out?” Clarke whispers as she hooks hands behind the nape of Lexa’s neck, playing with the baby hairs. Incidentally, the heat between her legs has grown ever since Lexa rushed out of the penthouse leaving Clarke wet and unsatisfied, the first morning since the gala where she had to shower alone (and bring herself to completion unaided).

“False alarm,” Lexa replies, her hands busying with the exposed skin on show from Clarke’s pushed up skirt. “Turns out Titus read the bar chart upside down. He’s not good for my heart. I’m gonna fire him.”

Clarke laughs. “Bit harsh, no?”

Lexa shakes her head. She doesn’t follow up with justification of her unforgiving Human Resources practices, instead makes better use of her mouth on Clarke’s neck, skimming gently along, the opposite of harsh.

“So why didn’t you come back to me?” With Lexa’s attention turning to sucking, the question comes out higher pitched than Clarke intended.

“Sorry, I needed to tend to a few things,” Lexa says, switching to the other side of her neck once satisfied with the colouring of the hickey, “that I couldn’t put off like I have been because I’ve wanted to burn the indelible image of you and sex hair into my brain.”

The renewed attention makes Clarke involuntarily grind down. On the second, tighter circle, she gasps at the feeling of something firm meeting her burning centre. Clarke rolls her hips again to test the solidness.

“Lexa?” She drawls, realisation dawning. Her lips are suddenly dry. The other set much less so as they seek out more friction, Clarke rolling her hips more intently. “Is that what I think it is?”

A loud throat clearing diverts their attention, delaying Lexa’s response. Over Clarke’s shoulder she sees the receptionist standing with her tablet closely clutched against her chest like a shield, face flushed red, a few shades ahead of Clarke’s which is steadily catching up.

Needlessly and nervously, she knocks (presumably for a second time) to announce her already visible presence.

“Yes, Charlotte,” Lexa says, sounding nonplussed and making no move to defend their compromised position. Her hand idly runs higher on Clarke’s thigh under the skirt, thumb catching on lace, causing Clarke to bite down hard on her lip to keep the whimper in. Without the slightest hint of anything going on, Lexa applies the lightest pressure over a wet spot. Clarke whips her head back, glares at her on a sharp intake of air.

“Ms Woods, I’m sorry to interrupt,” the receptionist says, profusely apologetic and determinately averting eye contact. “Titus is on line two for you about the merger proposal. Sounded urgent. I tried to buzz earlier but, um, you weren’t picking up.”

“Everything is urgent with that man. He gives turtles existential crises,” Lexa sighs. “Tell him I’m busy, and to go see HR first thing tomorrow. Then call HR and have them draft termination papers for my review tonight.”

Charlotte’s eyes widen but she nods nonetheless, afraid to further impinge on her boss’s obvious mood. She bows her head in acquiescence to follow through on the instructions, backing away slowly despite looking ready to run. Inches before the door closes, Lexa pipes up again, eyes heavy and dark and locked firmly on Clarke, “Oh, and Charlotte, cancel my two and four o’clock. Something else, more important, has come up.” Lexa deliberately grips her hips tighter, pushing Clarke down against the undeniable bulge. Her voice lowers a register that has Clarke squirming for more contact. “You should take the rest of the day off too, I’ve got a good handle on things here.”

It’s barely 10:30 am so Clarke can imagine her employee’s disbelief at the early dismissal.

“Very well. Thank you, Ms Woods.”

As soon as the door clicks shut, they are kissing. Hungry and heedless of any measure of professionalism. Lexa’s tongue is hot in her mouth, Clarke’s hands are making a mess of her hair.

“I can’t believe you still have the dildo on,” Clarke says, breath ragged. They had special breakfast plans before the interruption. The anticipation from when Lexa had strapped rushes back a thousand fold.

“I was in a hurry and didn’t have time to change. It was lucky I even had a spare jacket here.” Lexa guides Clarke’s hips, which have started to move of their own accord, then teasingly asks, “Is it a problem?”

_Not a problem at all_ , as in fifteen minutes ago on seeing Lexa in a suit, Clarke discovered she synecdochically has a thing for corporate wear as much as formal black tie. Although on closer look the jacket and trousers aren’t of the same fibres, there’s no faulting their individual cut nor the way the mismatched two piece still hugs in the right places.

Rather than answer, Clarke lifts off from her lap then goes to lock the door. She chuckles overhearing Charlotte muttering to herself, _Jesus, exception indeed_. Before Lexa can whine at the loss of contact, she retakes her position a minute later, this time without her skirt and with Lexa’s slacks tugged down until they pool at her feet. Bright blue springs to life, sitting starkly and invitingly against the white oxford shirt. Lexa gulps, pupils completely blown, as Clarke runs the strap through her wetness, panties still on.

Several experimental rolls later, as the silk between her legs darkens, so do Lexa’s eyes, hands returning to thumb at the material.

“Fuck, Clarke.”

“Would you?” She urges with a coquettish tilt of her head. Removing her underwear, Clarke spreads her legs wider and lines up the dildo with her opening. Lexa enters her on a jerky, reactionary movement of excitement. After a short pause for the stretch, taking in shallow breaths, Clarke lowers herself by increments of soft noises until she bottoms out. Their moans are followed by the hurried sounds of packing outside Lexa’s door. “I’ve always fantasised about an office affair.”

Without further preamble Lexa rises to her feet and splays Clarke across her desk, not bothering to strip the rest of their clothes off. Some scattered papers aside, it’s a miracle little else topples over. Lexa is all business.

The heels of Clarke’s feet dig into her ass in encouragement as Lexa feverishly fucks her with uncanny precision while pawing at one breast underneath her rucked up top and paying fervent attention to the nipple of the other. The climax happens quickly, both already worked up from the morning that within minutes their cries reverberate; neither of them hears the loud slamming of the outer office door and the quickened steps of heels to the elevator.

The receptionist’s exit goes unnoticed as their release short circuits all functioning faculties.

“What are you doing to me?” Lexa whispers, the question more practical than rhetorical, chest heaving as she rests her forehead against Clarke’s. “I’ve never wanted to be inside someone’s pants so badly.”

“I’m not even wearing pants,” Clarke notes, breathing heavily. She affectionately cups Lexa’s jaw and angles it down for a kiss.

Softly, almost like a confession, Lexa admits, “I want to be in you all the time.”

Lexa drops to her knees a second later, ready to go again. If it’s not for solid hardwood, Clarke would have fainted. Legs adjusted to brace over Lexa’s shoulders, Lexa takes her a second time, her mouth and the flat of her tongue doing counterproductive work of both cleaning up and making another mess.

Clarke is too aroused to feel embarrassed when Lexa pulls back—chin excessively shiny—to praise, “You smell gorgeous. Is this what you had in mind coming here? To scent mark my office so I can’t think of anything else but you in my mouth when I work. Of you on my tongue, throbbing and swollen and so, so needy.”

Clarke’s walls contract around nothing. The most she had hoped for on the elevator ride up was a make out session, nothing in the way of being half naked, Lexa’s face between her thighs, and her arousal painted across crimson lips.

There’s little room for any self-consciousness when Lexa licks through thick desire and shares the taste afterward, withdrawing her mouth below to kiss Clarke with ravenous demand as she slides the dildo in again.

Whether it’s the dirty talk or the indelicate sounds of Lexa slamming back into her, Clarke’s grip on the desk’s edge is close to splintering the wood.

“Did we do this in your dream?”

Wet heat closes around one of her nipples again and Clarke nearly bucks off the desk at the competing sensations above and below but Lexa’s hand is there to hold her down.

Nothing she’s ever dreamt is half this good, Clarke wants to answer but Lexa’s ego is sufficiently large and Clarke’s climax is too precipitously close to formulate that many words.

“Or this?”

Lexa picks her up then. With unsparing swiftness, the windows become the next location of choice to play out Clarke’s fantasy. Lexa continues at a blister uninterrupted by the transfer.

Legs hooked tightly around Lexa’s waist and forearms pinned above her head against the glass, Clarke feels every thrust, the thickness and length hitting at a devastating angle. She’s extraordinarily wet, it’s astonishing Lexa hasn’t slipped out yet. That Clarke hasn’t melted into a puddle. The sweet musk of their arousal mixed in with the sharp, intoxicating bite of Lexa’s eau de something insanely attractive is as dizzying as the height of this top floor perch.

“Jesus, Lexa,” Clarke says, the sounds that have been caught in her throat finally find their way out, “ _fuck_.”

“I’m trying,” Lexa grunts, then pulls back to let the tip rest at her entrance, “to make your dreams,” and snaps her hips forward, “ _come_ true,” until she’s fully sheathed again.

She repeats the motion, picking up speed on each go. If Clarke had worried before about the hotel drywall keeping apace, it’s insignificant compared to her present concern about the strength of glass of this office tower.

Confidence in the building’s engineering notwithstanding, Lexa’s raw pounding has Clarke not caring if the windows are made of cellophane.

So wrapped up in the delicious tightness, she doesn’t give much meaning to Lexa’s continuing babble, the slip about Clarke being _her dream_.

Things get blurry thereafter.

The shatter-proof glass holds up better than Clarke’s vocal chords.

Lexa thoroughly ravishes her on the sofa next until Clarke is coming violently with a loud squirt and scream. The stain on the cushion evinces the degree to which Lexa wants to remember her executive time with Clarke.

When they end up taking a nap following the come down, it’s clear the need to get their fill of the other is not just sexual. Back spoon to front spoon, Lexa curls around her in a routine way, making up for a disrupted morning agenda of sex and sleeping in.

“I’m glad you came,” falls softly against her ears as she drifts under. The double entendre loses its intended effect by the sincerity in Lexa’s voice.

Post rest and cuddle, after a quick washup in the office’s private ensuite, Lexa relocates her laptop and paperwork to the coffee table where she sits in between Clarke’s bare, open legs on the floor—switching their positioning.

It’s indisputably domestic too. Comfort in the post-coital over the carnal.

Clarke quietly observes Lexa over her shoulder typing and tabulating away, something about a deal, a filing deadline and getting the fine print right, which she only half hears, busy instead tracing languid, unseen patterns over Lexa’s abs. Markus Kane, her dad’s business partner and best friend, oversees full company duties, sparing Clarke from having to grapple with the corporate ropes behind her family fortune. Observing Lexa in her element offers a behind-the-scene preview into market and industry details that have eluded her and are only excitable to subscribers of The Economist.

Her eyes glaze over the technical jargon and she’s at risk of falling asleep again but their casual touches keep her alert. Keeps the butterflies alive.

“You’re just going to watch me work?”

Lexa threads their fingers over her stomach, tilts her head to kiss Clarke’s eyelids, which flutter close at the gentle contact.

“Is that okay?”

“Are _you_ okay with it? We can go out. I’m sure ledgers and mergers aren’t part of your ideal last day in New York.”

Clarke shakes her head, burrows closer into Lexa’s neck. _No, but you are._

A kiss to the tip of a shoulder then, a returned peck to a raised knee there, a squeeze of her hand on Lexa’s stomach every so often; over the next while, they engage in an intimate, domestic solitude, anchored by minor pledges of “I’m here” and “There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”

Even when Clarke rearranges to sit side by side to give Lexa’s hitched breathing a break from her touch travelling too far north or south, their hands remain entwined, taking advantage of a left-handed and right-handed complementary so Lexa can continue working unbothered by Clarke’s absolute need to stay connected. Hand holding and itinerant touches and warm smiles softly mark the afternoon’s passage.

Lunch is ambling laughter and deli sandwiches delivered from Lexa’s favourite pastrami place across the street, then it’s back to studious labour while Clarke cracks away at a NYT crossword puzzle. Clarke knows she’s doing herself no favours by being here with Lexa like this—when it’s all a setup for heartbreak tomorrow—but it can’t be helped. Absorbed in a comforting companionship, she doesn’t register anything other than this humdrum window into a life with Lexa.

Occasionally running her hand through Lexa’s hair and massaging the base of her head, the quiet is thick with an unskinny love—unmuted by years apart—that Clarke tries hard not to disturb with her want of more kisses. She does her best to not ask for them. By some telepathy, however, Lexa’s the one who climbs into her lap later, cups her face and fulfils the simmering request.

One deep and delicate kiss is all it takes for their insatiable appetite to rear again. For the urgency to renew. Pen down, Clarke’s mouth and neck and chest appear to be Lexa’s self-reward for hours of self-control. Her intensive concentration shifts to the fine print of a dimple, a beauty mark, a collarbone. Pushed to the periphery earlier for the sake of productivity, desire returns at a smoulder as Lexa finds new parts of skin to red line, her focus centring squarely on crossing Ts and dotting Is with the tip of her tongue.

“Please, Lexa.”

A ravage of a second kiss is Clarke’s advance warning before she is turned around and placed on her back on the vintage Persian rug, knees pulled back and legs widened. Clothes discarded once more.

Lexa wastes no time to work her up with her tongue, followed by two fingers which takes Clarke to the edge but not over it. Then a quick scramble and Lexa is buckled in again, the dildo stroking through her soaked folds to ready for reentry.

“You’re so beautiful like this,” Lexa admires, the awe and soft tone a contrast to the promised rough taking, spreading tingles along her spine. One hand locking Clarke in place by the hip, the other fisting then fitting the toy back in. She whispers, “I can’t get enough.”

Lexa nudges forward but stops short of going past the head. The teasing earns a noise Clarke didn’t know she could make. The quarter pressure and partial fullness causes her thighs to quiver with anticipation.

“Baby,” Clarke keens, body arching to take more of her in, unaware of the pet name that slipped out. Aching and thrumming, addicted to having Lexa inside. “I need ...”

“I know,” Lexa coos, then sighs reverently when the rest is pushed all the way in. The penetration punches the air out of Clarke’s lungs. “Me too.”

Holding onto her hand pressed by the side of her head, on Clarke’s nod, Lexa takes off at a breathtaking pace, her rhythm pulsing in time to Clarke’s hummingbird heartbeat.

Their bodies join repeatedly on plaintive cries, Lexa sinking into Clarke in a halcyon haze of sticky, sun-cracked kisses.

With the light behind her now and her hair spilling in waves over her shoulders, _Lexa_ is the beautiful one, Clarke thinks. Tone and tensed, muscles flexing in visible exertion, her body is a wonder as it connects with Clarke over and over. She’s filled in well compared to the gangly teenager who shyly laid on top of Clarke the first time, both new to the feeling of being inside each other. Slow and tender and tentative then. Clarke’s vision swims in and out of seeing that girl and this one, who’s anything but slow or tentative, though still very much tender.

The contrast causes the butterflies in Clarke’s stomach to ramp up their fluttering. Overwhelmed with fondness, she stares harder. Lexa’s movements falter at the intensity of Clarke’s gaze.

“Too hard?” She checks in, pulling back with a look of concern.

Asked with such care, cheeks a pretty bloom and hands kneading in gentle apology, Lexa is anything but hard. She is softness personified.

“Never.”

The liquid heat between Clarke’s legs, however, is impatient for any kind of attention, no matter the pressure.

Taking advantage of Lexa’s momentary lag in concentration, Clarke takes the reins, somehow she flips their positions, landing on top. The dildo hits her deeper like this as she starts to ride Lexa, who moves quickly on from her surprise at the display of strength, distracted by Clarke’s breasts, eagerly cupping them to bear the weight. Clarke hangs onto her shoulders for leverage while rising and sinking herself onto the silicone shaft in a way that has the room spinning. Head tipped to the ceiling, a fog of sinful thoughts fills her vision.

She is no longer thinking of hard or soft, just the need to come and _soon_.

Clarke rolls her hips, pushes down harder. Lifts and lowers as rapidly as the capacity of her lungs will allow. One of Lexa’s hands starts to rub rough circles on her clit that nearly cripples Clarke. It’s only because of a last minute instinctual tightening of her thighs bracketing Lexa’s hips that prevents a total collapse.

“I was wrong,” Lexa mulls, pulling Clarke’s attention back to her mouth, which Clarke bends down to kiss, “you’re even more stunning this way.”

Her look of awe veers them further toward the sentimental, double knots the tangles already made by the afternoon’s tender unfolding.

“You’re going to give my future lovers a complex when they can’t live up to this kind of sweet talk.”

The reaction to Clarke’s bliss-dazed words is surprising. And a turn on.

Lexa practically _growls_ at the prospect of someone other than her having this privilege. Eyes steady on the tuft of blonde where the dildo is stretching Clarke, fingers press firmer on the swollen redness peeping through, as if to stake a claim.

The possessiveness makes Clarke wetter.

“ _Good_. My plan to ruin you for everyone else is working,” Lexa jokes but Clarke reads the underlying disquiet from the brief flash of hurt presumably imagining alternative bedmates.

In a passing lapse of judgment, she responds with a mollifying promise, “Ever only you,” and pushes their bodies closer, whimpering at their immeasurably perfect fit, “can make me feel like this.”

Furrowed brows smoothing out, Lexa kisses her, relieved and with ruinous intent to make the statement true. She cants her hips, thrusting up. They moan at the impact. The fingers on her clit take on brutal purpose.

Clarke cries out. Her heart verges on giving out. It, and every inch of her body, feels so incredibly full.

She is at the threshold of her biggest release yet when, somewhere in the office, her purse distantly shrills with a familiar ringtone. Then Lexa’s goes off too.

“Shit,” Clarke manages to croak, “I forgot they existed.” She peers up at the wall clock and groans. “Fuck,” she curses just as the dildo hits at a spot threatening to shatter her whole, “we’re gonna be so late.”

Without pausing, one-handed, Lexa reaches for her phone on the coffee table and taps out something before tossing the device aside.

“S’fine, I texted back.”

“Who did you text?”

“Abby and I go way back.”

“Lexa!” Clarke’s reproach coincides with a deliberately-timed thrust, Lexa pumping into her harder to drown out further complaints about showing up tardy for dinner with their parents. “Fuck fuck fuck.”

Holding up a reservation to the Chef’s Table at the most exclusive, multiple times James Beard fetted restaurant in Midtown, seems to be the last thing on Lexa’s mind, who has recovered from her momentary vulnerability. Her priority is dead set on making Clarke come the loudest and hardest. Truly a feat with how loud and how hard it’s been.

“Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?”

“Shut up, Lex.” Clarke laughs, the sound temporarily loosening the tight coil in her stomach. She is so close. Grinds more determinately. “Just hurry. Knowing Mom, she’s already on her third Mai Tai.”

“Fourth,” Lexa corrects, gripping Clarke’s hips tighter to help her chase the friction. “Don’t worry, I stalled and she’s happy for us to take our time.”

“What did you say?” Clarke arches a suspicious eyebrow.

“That we’re currently in the naked throes of passion and I’m trying to give her a grandchild.” Before the lines of Clarke’s glower has a chance to etch on her face, Lexa tacks on, “I told her we’ve hit traffic, and I’m driving as fast as I can.”

Lexa makes a showing of being factual with her words, playfully jogging her hips as if steering. It renews Clarke’s laughter, but the breathy chuckle is immediately overtaken by loss of breath altogether.

Lexa flips her on her stomach.

Pulls her hips up, spreads her knees apart. Drives back in. Fast and furious.

All thoughts of her mother disappear.

—

“Mom!”

“What? All I said was it’s so lovely to see our girls together again.”

The blush racing up Clarke’s chest to her neck and face tells them the comment was far from innocuous. Abby has elevated making a segue about Clarke’s sex hair as a greeting into an art form.

Even the bartender chuckled as Lexa inconspicuously adjusted the fly of her trousers.

“Mother, Lexa and I are not _together_ together. She just gave me a ride here.” Clarke warns, staving off where she knows the remark is headed. From experience, the best defence against Abby’s ways is to take early control before dinner devolves into a census on her love life.

Her case is weakened by the meaningful gaze to where she and Lexa are unconsciously holding hands, which Clarke drops immediately in an act of self sacrificing sabotage.

“I’m good at giving rides,” Lexa unhelpfully contributes, preening with overstretched innocence.

“Baby, you need to come up with new motorcycle puns,” Clarke patronises, patting her on the chest with the now free hand, then despite herself, endeared by the received pout, tips on her toes to give Lexa a kiss on the mouth.

Her eyes widen on hearing a delighted snicker and realising why Lexa remains rigid, lips stiffly not reciprocating. She can feel Abby’s glee without looking. Clarke’s cheeks pink some more when her feet replants on the ground. Loose and warm from another languid day spent in each other’s arms, her defences are much lowered than thought.

Abby laughs, bright and smug, far too conspiratorial for her liking.

“You’ve caught us red-handed, Mom. Lexa is going to quit her job and I plan to give up on my life’s work to run away and have babies together. Look out for the RSVP to our elopement shortly in the mail.”

“Clarke, don’t be hideous,” Abby chides, lowering her voice. “We don’t use the e-word around here, it’s impolite. Of course we can keep the wedding small, something like 500 guests, but it would be ghastly to hide intimate declarations of love away from the prying eyes of judgmental strangers. Page Six would have a field day.”

“We’re just friends who kiss hello.”

The point is moot. Abby stares at Clarke’s neck, the bruises not as well covered by her hair as she’d hoped.

“How many times have you said hello to each other before coming here?”

At this rate, Clarke’s face is at risk of staying a permanent shade of red, hand going up to rub at a particularly sore spot near the base of her throat.

“We’re having fun, okay, that’s all.”

Abby laughs again, not believing her one bit but letting up. “Either way, it pleases me to see you and Lexa happy,” she offers, genial. “A mother can dream.”

Clarke narrows her eyes at the correlation implied.

“You and Clarke have that in common.” Lexa finally decides to pick a side in the debate after having stayed uncharacteristically silent. Pitching forward, she stage whispers. “She fantasises about me too.”

“I hate you both.”

Laughing, Lexa darts out of reach from Clarke’s intended shove, spinning to chivalrously hold out an arm for Abby to link. As Lexa escorts them from the bar to their table where her parents have already been seated, Clarke follows behind with a smile and a head shake, disbelieving how her chemistry with Lexa can go from hot sex to breezy banter without batting an eyelash. It’s never been like this with anyone else.

“Finn was never good enough for you.”

Clarke freezes at the same time she hears Lexa’s fork scrape her plate. The first two courses were going so well without incident, Clarke should have known her lucky streak would run out. Chat about the gala’s success had been the general focus of conversation as Abby caught Indra and Gustus up on the preceedings, who had missed out because of another engagement. As the topic moved on, it was naive to not expect Abby to circle the wagons on her favourite subject, Clarke and who she is or _should be_ dating.

Mention of Raven and Anya somehow gave her mother an opening to comment on Clarke’s past entanglements.

“Finn was ... Finn.”

“Not a ringing endorsement.”

Clarke’s eyes widen at the specific phrasing. As diversion, she asks after Markus who was unable to make it tonight, the progression of Abby’s relationship with the executive a recent though long time coming development Clarke had learned about on her last visit. While the news helped to ease concern about her mother’s loneliness with Clarke always far away, the newfound happiness has redoubled the matchmaker’s efforts to ensure Clarke finds hers too.

“I worry.”

“I’m good, Mom.” Clarke reassures, declining the latest offer to set her up with so-and-so’s son or daughter. Under the table, her hand gently rubs at Lexa’s thigh. “For now, I’m good.”

Abby obliges that this is the farthest Clarke will indulge her interference so she smiles concession and turns to pick up a different thread with Indra.

“Finn?”

“Ex-boyfriend,” Clarke explains, pivoting attention to Lexa who must have been waiting to ask and who had little to say about Clarke’s potential blind dates. She’s nervous for the same reason that Lexa takes a long pull from her Malbec and nearly spits it back out at Clarke’s next wording. “Almost fiancé.”

Lexa’s grip of the wine glass stem tightens.

“He asked,” Clarke reveals then leaves it on a quiet note, “I said no.”

It could have been chalked up to different understandings of commitment, but really, the reason for the non-acceptance, even if it wasn’t apparent to Clarke back then, sits less than two feet away.

Their side conversation ends on Lexa’s hard swallow and curt nod. Though Lexa doesn’t comment further, Clarke reads the unvoiced questions plain on her face.

Clarke tunes in to hear her mother’s talk with the Woods progress to a status update about Lexa, hypocritically piquing her interest in turn.

“You must be happy about stealing her back from that awful coast.”

Clarke rolls her eyes. Abby has unreasonable fealty to the _right side_ of the country.

“We are,” Indra confirms, reaching across the table to lightly squeeze Lexa’s arm. She elbows her husband in the side for his input. Wordlessly complying, Gustus nods while chewing, not bothering to look up, concentration entirely on his roasted rack of lamb.

“How’d you lure her? I’ve been trying for years.” Abby’s plotting has Clarke raising a curious eyebrow at the previously undisclosed info. It shoots well past her hairline when she learns, “Did it have to do with her engagement with Costia?”

“But that ended awhile ago. We have also been trying since. To be honest, I don’t know what compelled her to finally come back. Her California overstay presumably was punishment for us not letting her quit her MBA to become a hobo.”

“Guys, I’m right here,” Lexa speaks up against being talked about as if she’s not in the room, though notably avoiding commentary on the parts that has Clarke staring a hole into the side of her head.

Nonetheless, Clarke doesn’t press the issue because, _I almost quit school and was engaged_ , likely did not come up in their casual conversations for the same reason that, _someone asked for my hand but theirs wasn’t the one I wanted to take_ , hadn’t been mentioned either.

“It was a long shot but with Anya in Germany heading up the transition of our European headquarters out of London to Berlin,” Indra fills in, ignoring her daughter’s protest, “we didn’t want a Woods vacancy in New York for long.”

“What, Dad, too busy perfecting your putting game?” Lexa quips in a transparent bid to redirect the spotlight. Gustus grunts acknowledgment but shows no further interest in being pulled away from his meal.

“Your father is retired, honey. Someone needs to mow our lawn.”

“What are your groundskeep staff doing then, braiding each other’s hair?”

Indra light-heartedly scowls at her quick-tongue. She turns to Clarke, smiling. “What about you, dear? Keeping out of trouble unlike that one?”

Clarke laughs, diplomatically sidestepping the family quarrel to recount her recent time abroad and preview her upcoming project in Malaysia.

“Very impressive,” Indra concludes. Clarke notices the shared look of pride on Abby and Lexa’s faces. “You both are,” Indra adds, directing her marvel at her daughter too. “Who knew you would turn out to be such fine young women.”

“We didn’t,” Abby and Gustus chime in chorus. Indra joins in on their laughter, triply concurring in overlapping chatter about the hair-raising moments. Abby supplements, “It was touch and go for a while. Still is, maybe.”

Clarke and Lexa groan.

“Please, let’s not ruin a good steak with talk about our misspent youth,” Lexa broods, cutting into the rare meat with a little more than necessary force, the excess a probable leftover sulk from her reaction to Clarke’s past and the involuntary information sharing about her own engagement.

Clarke takes pity on her dinner and takes over the carving, oblivious to Abby and Indra’s silent observation.

“Misspent is too generous of a word, Alexandria,” Indra says, expression schooling to hard lines Clarke remembers always accompanying intimidating handouts of “you’re grounded” to Anya and Lexa when they were being rascally raccoons, as she endeared to call them.

“Ooooh, full named there, Alexandria,” Clarke ribs. Lexa faux-glares but immediately softens when Clarke slides the plate back to her. The unexpected, _lingering_ , cheek kiss in thanks warms Clarke but also adds fuel to their mothers’s all too knowing non-verbal exchange.

“Posting bail in South America is not my idea of long weekend relaxation,” Abby backs up her friend.

“I was trying to make a statement,” Lexa defends on a biteful.

“Did it have to involve the family jet?” Indra tsks. “Commercial not good enough for you?”

Properly chastised, Lexa grumbles. “It’s not like it was being used.”

“Oh my god, you told me you took a bus from New Mexico!” Clarke exclaims, knocking Lexa’s shoulder, shocked by her extra-ness. The pieces click. It clarifies some details that remained hazy about their time in Colombia when Lexa visited the second week into her stint with Medics for Humanity.

“Fuelling up a $6 million aircraft for personal transport because you miss your girlfriend is not an economic use of company funds.”

“We’re in logistics, I was testing out a new delivery route. _Besides_ , you wouldn’t let me take my bike,” Lexa justifies, full on pout in place, despite its historical ineffectiveness on Indra.

“It was enough we let you spend your summer on a cross country road trip on that demon. Is it asking that much to want your hot head to stay attached to your body?”

“I was trying to find myself.”

“The back of my hand could have shown you where to look,” Indra offers, no hint of kidding.

“ _Luckily_ , I had a friend in the State department,” Abby re-steers the conversation while Lexa and Indra continue with their competitive staredown. “It sounded like the rescue came just in time too. I was horrified to learn there was screaming coming from their holding cell, which is odd and highly alarming considering I had secured them a private bunk.”

Lexa chokes noisily on nothing, avoiding eye contact with Abby, and her parents for that matter. Clarke pats her back while trying to keep a lid on her own embarrassment, remembering their drunken night and how Lexa’s boredom led to an early (vocal) release of a different sort than the one procured by Abby’s generous donation to the national memorial park to replace the hero statue they had accidentally defaced.

“Admittedly, it wasn’t our finest hour,” Clarke acknowledges.

“No, not what your father meant by using your white privilege for good,” Abby says softly, eyes misting at the mention of her late husband. Clarke shares a wistful, sympathetic smile with her mother.

“I think we can safely agree, not much good can be expected when these two are in the same room,” Indra says with fond resignation. “Pure trouble. Fortunately, I have another daughter who takes less pleasure at watching my heart rate rise.”

Clarke sees where Lexa gets her dramatics from. She laughs, but Abby’s quick cutting glance shortens the chuckle, a clear indication that Clarke is no better.

“Faulty sibling is my brand, don’t knock it, Mom,” Lexa asserts, then psychoanalyses, “It’s only ’cause Anh’s given you a cute grandson you got soft on her.”

Despite a twitch of a smile at the mention of Aden, Indra isn’t having it. Lexa shrinks in her seat under her mother’s unamused glare.

“It was one time,” Lexa mutters to her plate.

“Actually,” Gustus, who had been mostly quiet and tunnelled vision about his food, clears his throat and pipes up, dabbing the corner of his mouth. “You’ve been _borrowing_ company assets as if it’s a birthright ever since you learned how to spell Amex, and usually it’s because of or on behalf of Clarke,” he reprimands, then tells the others, “There was another time Lexa tried to make a run for it on our dime. A precedent set very early on.”

Something twinkly in his eyes makes everyone smile. Everyone except Lexa.

Clarke catches Lexa’s eyes widen in horror then watches a soundless argument between father and daughter, a pleading from the latter not to reveal the doubtless embarrassing story. Gustus wins out against her puppy dog eyed objection, also immune from three decades of it.

“Clarke had a bad case of the flu that one year at St. Helena’s, remember?”

Abby nods, memory slotting into place. “Yes, she missed nearly two weeks of school.”

First grade is generally a fog, but Clarke does have a faint recollection of really awful body aches and lots of ice cream.

“Miss Lexa didn’t understand how viral infections worked and assumed Clarke was being held against her will. It was only day two of Clarke’s absence from the preparatory but supposedly too long already. She used her piggy bank savings to rope our poor doorman into a rescue mission, hiring him to help save Clarke’s life—break her out of fun jail.” Gustus chuckles, a hearty sound. “Take her elsewhere to live where they can both go to school together and not miss a day. Bag packed and everything, including Mr Pauna, her stuffed monkey.”

“ _Gorilla_.” Clarke and Lexa correct at the same time.

“You never told me this,” Clarke says to Lexa, smile wide.

“I try to block out the trauma,” Lexa replies through gritted teeth, side eyeing her dad with ineffectual lasers.

“What happened next?” Abby prods, curious, eyes crinkling with mirth at the story. “I don’t recall Lexa visiting on her own.”

“That’s because she didn’t make it far. Quint had called from downstairs after she first approached him, informed me Lexa had singled him out assuming he’d have your home address because it stands to reason that a doorman would know every door in the city—sound logic—certain he could take her to Clarke’s blue one. I held out on providing him with the directions, let her have her independence, and instructed him to follow her lead. Bossy even as a first grader.” Gustus looks at his daughter with paternal fondness before turning back to his captive audience. “Quint told me she had him driving around in fruitless circles, pointing out every brownstone with even the slightest hint of blue on the door that could possibly be imprisoning Clarke.”

The three older adults laugh. Lexa looks despondent. Clarke internally swoons at her pint size hero.

“For fucksakes, I was _six_ , how am I expected to memorise a street name _and_ number,” Lexa pouts again, adding crossed arms to the mix.

“Language,” Indra admonishes without a beat. Her smile contradicts her strict tone.

“Several unsuccessful door knocks and confused stares later, she fell asleep in the back of the car and Quint carried her upstairs to us. I put her to bed and pinky swore we’d free Clarke in the morning together. We also had a good chat about approaching strangers for a ride with intent to commit a felony.”

“He wasn’t a stranger,” Lexa notes the technicality. “I paid him a hefty sum for his discretion. The traitor. Goes to show, can’t trust men. Betrayed by my doorman and my own father.”

“I did take you to the Griffins as promised, didn’t I?” Gustus counters, a belly laugh shaking the table.

“I do have vague memories of a really tight hug,” Clarke says, brows scrunched in thought, then smiles at Lexa as the picture clears a bit more. “You let me keep Mr Pauna.”

“I wanted to keep you safe.”

A collective _awww_ rings around the table, Lexa’s face colours in embarrassment. Clarke intertwines their hands under the table, squeezing in solidarity.

The rest of dinner unfolds per usual among the old family friends. They stay away from business talk and keep to the age-old high society tradition of wagering wedding dates and divorce turnarounds and pregnancy far-alongs. Clarke pays all of it no mind. She and Lexa are in their own little world of inside jokes and other St Helena shenanigans, unaware of the three sets of watchful eyes and knowing smiles doting on them, unaware of engaging in the hidden love language that began on ivy-covered grounds.

—

The penthouse’s private rooftop is where they spend their nightcap after their parents retire for the evening following a drawn out fight over the bill, which ended in compromise with Gustus covering dinner and Abby generously tipping the wait staff and cost-matching with a donation to the chef’s chosen local food charity. The ebullient energy from the clinks of wine glasses and the din of chatter over perfectly plated food art, fall away to a quieter stillness.

They arrive onto the lounge deck tipsy and handsy, warm against the light evening chill. Lexa brings out the leftover champagne from the gala that they hadn’t finished because of other bodily distractions that first night.

Her idea of finishing it now, with them blanketed in fine wool and Clarke cocooned in her arms, is to share the last of the bubbles mouth to mouth. Keeping sole possession of the bottle, her slow sips are followed by slow kisses, metering Clarke’s intake of rich nutty and honey notes. Tense and sharp balanced with creamy and silky, the taste and texture are heightened by the sweetness and softness of Lexa’s tongue.

Clarke is in love with this moment. With how she’s straddled in Lexa’s lap, with how the moon hangs and the stars shine, with how her hands in Lexa’s hair is all that keeps her from floating away. The roof’s vantage point puts the evening—the day and week—into perspective. Clear as the night sky, the realisation settles between puffs of softly exhaled air. She is in love with Lexa. A gilded love that’s lost none of its lustre.

As they steadily empty the vintage brut, a 1995 edition that’s a few thousand dollars worth of limited bottle, there’s a sobering clarity to what has been transpiring between them, all consuming, wholly intoxicating.

Accustomed to a poached egg in the field being the gastronomic highlight of her week, Clarke often forgets the culture shock she experiences coming back to the city and moving among the 0.01% again, until Truffled Orecchiette and Duck Confit Emulsion and other unpronounceable dishes and obscure cooking methods overwhelms her. While it’s faux pas and beneath the dignity of the emotionally oppressed for the rich to talk about money, usually, Clarke can’t help see dollar signs wherever she looks. The Krug’s gold-plated label another signifier.

Not this night though.

By contrast, folded against Lexa’s front as they survey the skyline and the blinking lights from this 360 degree panorama, where Lexa’s family owns a stake in a quarter of the properties within sight and Clarke’s family another quarter, half of the city at their disposable income, Clarke doesn’t see what’s available to them with the swipe of a black card.

Peering into eyes big and round and very green, a forest of warmth and affection, she only sees the girl she’s crazy about. No extent of their collective wealth can buy Clarke enough champagne kisses. No amount of postcode envy can live up to this kind of buzz.

Like in Montauk, the recognition is both happy and sad. She’s in love with someone she can’t have. Not in the usual way. And not in any way that wouldn’t jeopardise the livelihoods of the communities she’s been trying to help, if she chooses to pick Lexa and whatever _this_ between them could be, over what she has steadily built in the past decade. It’s the sullen state of things, which hasn’t changed, no matter the state of her heart. But, differently here, under the influence of cuvée-covered lips, she chooses rather to dwell in the happy of now. The rest is a problem for tomorrow’s Clarke.

There really isn’t another option with the immediate view before her.

Lexa is staring at Clarke with such longing, in a manner that owning all of New York plus LA and London and every major metropolis wouldn’t even begin to scratch the surface of how much will be left wanting once Clarke leaves. There is the chance that Clarke is simply projecting—the heartbreaking alternative that it has been mere sex for Lexa all along—but by the look on Lexa’s face, it is anything but that.

“Why did you say no to Finn?”

“Why didn’t it work out with Costia?”

The questions, softly asked, get carried away by the wind, remaining softly unanswered, though not unknown. No other person has been able to make their hearts beat this way.

So, instead of counting gold labels, Clarke counts the gold flecks of a starry gaze.

Nothing else is said on that rooftop. The milky twilight and the moonlit floor are witness to two split hearts sharing one moment of togetherness. Taking in the the same view of ground and sky.

Later, drunk on each other and fuelled by more than the hard chase of sex of recent days, their bodies come together for the final times in what feels like a surrender to all that’s gone unsaid.

Words are given voice through touch.

They make love in that paper thin hour between asleep and awake when the world is quiet and possibility hangs between streetlight and moonlight.

It’s a slow dismantling. Clarke taking her time to taste and memorise. Lexa giving way to her mapping by kiss and tongue. From chin to collarbone, rib to rib, solid muscle to soft, wet folds, she’s granted permission to explore; to follow dips and contours, edges and planes. They move as one, bending around the need and _want_ of the other. When Lexa enters her, slips inside, Clarke arches into her hand and mouth. The silk sheets are nothing compared to the softness with which Lexa takes Clarke to the heights of pleasure over and again. When her hands aren’t scrabbling for grip on the bedding, they’re seeking purchase in Lexa’s hair or making marks of her back.

When Lexa rides herself to release draped over her body, pressing Clarke into the mattress with her solid weight as she gently fucks her from behind, their shared cries merge with the intimate sounds of skin sliding on skin. Skitters across the surface like rocks skipping on water that reminds Clarke of the lake cabin where Lexa pushed inside her for the first time and she thought nothing else would ever feel this good, this full, again.

Of course, pinned against the treehouse hours later was also good and full. As was the case throughout their history of intimacy. Their pre-gala encounter has since recalled to Clarke not only the goodness and the fullness of being with Lexa, but of how singular and stirring it is contrasted to other histories.

Lexa is generous and gorgeous and the rare one to ever make Clarke’s chest thud with such shattering affect, even as she kitten-licks her softly ready for another round. A flutter faint touch—slow and firm circles—that’s just as devastating as the brutal pace of their earlier couplings.

Lexa doesn’t stop. Breath trembling. Three fingers and to the knuckle deep, it’s a pattern of sink and spill. An unhurried race to a receding finish line.

Lexa’s office and the restaurant and the rooftop had pressed pause on Clarke’s impending leave. By the minute, reality seeps back in, the inevitable waiting stage side for this last act to finish before the play goes on. But while Clarke still can, she will hang on for as long as possible.

The restless energy of their imminent separation dissipates, if only briefly, with every orgasm pulled from the other. “Fuck, baby, like that,” is met with deeper fingers or a softer kiss or a surer tongue, followed by “you’re so pretty when you come for me. I wish we could do this fo—”

The end word is lost to Clarke’s cry. To the treble of her coming undone.

It’s never been like this with anyone else. The desire. The sheer, bruising, desperation. She’s hoarse from begging for more, from giving Lexa more. When she comes down after one final release and regains her breath, it’s been ten seconds or ten hours or ten years, Clarke can no longer keep time.

Until sunrise, she listens to the metronome of Lexa’s heartbeats and lives in the span of an unchosen, unspoken forever.

—

She’s been here before.

The terminal buzzes with activity. The overhead speaker prompts crackling through the wifi airwaves.

They’re standing in the same positions, Lexa holding onto Clarke’s duffel bag in one hand while the other nervously wipes against her jeans. Clarke is rocking on her feet, thumbs hooked in her back pockets to keep from reaching out for the free hand, afraid she won’t be able to let go if she links their fingers.

The last airport goodbye between them, naïveté still clung to youthful hope with promises to call. A tearful goodbye that turned out more permanent than the temporary _I’ll see you later_.

This time it’s not any easier.

The script, however, is different. There’s no disillusion about what happens next.

“Lexa, I know what I said at the restaurant but we can’t be friends.”

“I know,” Lexa murmurs. Her quick agreement is more heartbreaking than the protest Clarke anticipated. “It’s too hard to not want ...”

... _more_.

Lexa’s gaze has been intent on the floor for awhile. When it lifts to finally lock with Clarke’s, the shine of her eyes reveals a glassy effort not to cry. It makes the burn behind her own set hotter.

“Don’t call, ok?” Clarke whispers, a plea. “Because if you do ...”

She doesn’t finish her sentence either but Lexa understands, nodding. It’s already difficult as is. This way is better, she tells herself, a reminder of what was said at the beach. Instead of objecting to the request, Lexa reaches for her hand, a soft entreaty. “Come here.”

When Clarke steps forward, Lexa sweeps her into her arms, bag dropping to the floor. The hug is crushing. Her throat tightens as she sinks into the feel of Lexa.

It hurts. Unbearably. To be this close to someone—to a love this palpable—but have no words or recourse to call it by a name other than, _if only_.

Cradling the back of her head, Lexa says into the shell of her ear, “Thanks for the sex.” It makes Clarke laugh, a watery chuckle that turns into a silent sob when Lexa presses trembling lips gently into her temple. Her least sure kiss yet. “I lust you.”

Lexa’s joke serves as an unintended reality check to strengthen Clarke’s weakening resolve. With the distance and the different life paths, it would, _could_ , only ever be lust and the occasional road crossing. They deserve better than that.

“Whenever you’re back in the city, you know where to find me.” Lexa tries anyway, subscribing to a different philosophy, something is better than nothing. “I’ll be the one in the tower. My name’s on the building,” she says, sounding sadder than the light tone aimed at comforting Clarke. “Believe me now that I’m legitimate?”

There was never a doubt.

“You’ve always been the real deal to me, Lex,” Clarke whispers. It’s the closest she can come to a confession about her feelings. She cries, brushing more wetness against Lexa’s neck.

They stand hugging for an indeterminate time, hearts tender and aching, until the boarding call for her flight startles them into action again.

“Stay out of trouble, okay?”

“Stay safe,” Lexa returns. Then softly, “Bye, Clarke.”

One last slow kiss and Lexa lets go. Steps back. Clarke picks up her bag, unable to speak. A knot in her stomach and rocks in her throat.

Heart as heavy as the lead in her feet, she is moving away toward where Monty is waiting ahead when she hears her name called. Her next step falters. Instinct is telling her to turn around, to run back to Lexa and close the short distance. To hear a final plea for her to stay and that they can make it work and find a way. But that would be irresponsible and no less selfish than when they were twenty-two and wanted to shutter away from the world.

For the second time in a decade, Clarke swallows down what she wants in order to make room for the bittersweet pill of what she needs to do. Stricken that she can’t have both. Hands closing in a fist, eyes squeezing tight for a moment, she doesn’t turn around. Keeps walking.

Leaving without a ‘maybe someday’ this time, and instead, on a more indefinite parting, Clarke murmurs the words, painful and quiet,

“Bye, Lexa.”

—

“Clarke, we need you out there,” Monty implores, breathless at the tent’s entrance.

Back turned, Clarke wipes at her tears. Needing a minute to compose herself.

She’d been going over their accounting and inventory shortages at her field desk when a Griffin Newsletter popped up in her email. Humouring her mother’s weird communication of choice, she had expected to find an update on Markus or on brunches and whatever obscenities the Blakes and Bergdofs were up to, only to be presented with a single ‘article’ about the CEO of Woods Inc HQ, a feature on the progress of her taking over its helm in the month since the gala and Clarke’s departure.

Clarke barely paid attention to the headline news about the company expanding its partnership with the charitable arm of Griffin Global into a longer term merger between the conglomerates; her eyes instead went straight to the image of Lexa taken at a recent afternoon tea with Abby, a tradition that Lexa had initiated after Jake’s death. It warmed her to see them pick up where they left off.

While there’s a lot to be desired of her mother’s graphic design skills, her photography is proficient enough to capture Lexa’s beauty, if not the sadness Clarke reads in the corner of her eyes. Three weeks of sweeping feelings under the rug to concentrate on work, head in sand, were knocked off course by the smallest, subdued smile. Three weeks of counting every kiss until she was finally sleeping, salt nightly meeting her pillow, appeared like a waking dream as her finger drew over the line of Lexa’s jaw, tracing the curve of Lexa’s mouth.

She had hoped time and distance would have dulled the pain but one picture made it clear; what a decade and a dozen time zones couldn’t managed to dim, is impossible to ask of 30 days.

Her heart clenched and her eyes watered. She questioned her airport decision, not knowing anymore if it’s the right one.

“Clarke?” Monty repeats with renewed urgency, bringing her back into the moment.

His familiar panic is a welcomed distraction. The likely emergency reminds her why she’s here.

Closing out of the mail app and the laptop, Clarke offers scratchily over her shoulder without looking, “Yeah, be right there.”

Monty scurries off, the sound of the tent flap whooshing in his wake. Oddly, the gap in fabric carries in another, different, whooshing sound from the outside. Much, much louder.

When Clarke emerges, an unusually strong wind makes a mess of her hair. Once cleared of the strands obscuring her vision, she’s confused to find a black chopper touching down onto the open field, its blades slowing upon landing. They’re not expecting a shipment for another week. She thinks to duck back into the tent to check the log when the helicopter door opens and the pilot steps off.

Her heart stutters.

Aviator sunglasses. Grey shirt. Black leather jacket. Long legs in tight, dark washed jeans stride toward her.

“Delivery,” Lexa announces, shyly holding up a brown paper bag.

“I ... uh ... you ...” Clarke blinks and gapes, unable to find her words.

Lexa makes up for her loss and immediately launches into saying, “I know it’s been ten years apart and only four days together but,” breaking for a shaky breath, a nervous laugh, “these last weeks without you has been kinda torture. It really, _really_ sucked. I have all the money in the world and the only thing I want to spend is time with you.”

“Lexa ...”

“I’ve been miserable. _This way_ hasn’t been better for me,” Lexa pushes on, cutting her off and picking up on all the threads of conversation from the beach to the restaurant, the hotel to the airport. “It wasn’t just fun for me. Not just lust. Well, I mean, a lot of it is, but not all of it.”

Clarke laughs, the first happy sound to come out of her shock.

“It’s mostly another four letter l-word, which I can’t stop thinking about or feel hopeful for ever since seeing you in that dressing room, and which, I think you might feel too,” Lexa continues with her speech. “You said not to call, and I respected your wishes. But I found another way to not break my word,” Lexa gestures to the chopper, and on a deep breath and with eyes blurry with tears, “and also to not break my own heart again.”

“What are you saying, exactly?”

“There’s always another way.”

“What other way?”

Lexa moves in closer, seeming encouraged by Clarke’s softened gaze. “I don’t know. I don’t have all the answers right now.” Another step taken. “While I’m no longer young and I might be rich, I am still, most unfortunately for Anya’s anxiety, dumb in love.” Closer. “So, can we ...”

She trails off to cup Clarke’s face and erase the gap between them, stopping a micro breath short of following through on a clear intent to kiss. Clarke makes a soft noise of surprise at the sudden proximity but then she automatically opens her mouth to meet Lexa’s, drawing close the final inch.

Clarke woke up predawn this morning on a cot with a mattress no thicker than, though just as hard as, two stacked books, to find a broken ceiling fan making her sleep quarters insufferably humid. She went outside to sit on the deck in search of nonexistent cool air. Letting her mind drift back to the hotel and the king size bed, it ached to think that the previous comfort had nothing to do with Egyptian linen or voice-controlled climate settings, and all to do with the warmth of Lexa’s arms.

Forlorn and missing Lexa terribly, she had wondered if they’d be looking up at the same stars at that moment as they did on the rooftop. Given the twelve hour time difference, it’s unlikely; the sun not yet rising here, not yet setting there—a painful in-between. But for one shooting, wishing star, it was nice to think they may be staring up at the same ceiling of light.

Kissing her now, everything feels bright again. Beyond nice. Clarke tastes salt on Lexa’s lips and changes angle to cover it in sweetness.

“Can we try?” Lexa finishes asking once the kiss ends. “I’d like to try harder.”

Clarke stares blankly, letting her breath catch. Her fingers press against her lips to slow down their quiver.

“When did you get your pilot’s license?”

Her question throws Lexa off her bluster, eyes crinkling with held back joy seeing the normally composed executive ruffled.

“That’s your answer?”

“It’s a bit extra, no?”

Lexa huffs, stammers to further her case. “If I have to open a satellite southeast asian office or buy the whole Malay Peninsula to give us a fighting chance, don’t think I haven’t already started the paperwork.”

Clarke laughs.

“Don’t buy Malaysia,” she advises, tugs at Lexa’s shirt in warning as she comes out of her stupor. “And we’ll talk about grand romantic gestures involving company aircraft later.” Her hands circle Lexa’s waist under her jacket, tightens their embrace, and says, as if it’s undue strain to accept, “But, fine, let’s try.”

The smile that lights up in response could power the helicopter home to New York and back thrice over. Still, Lexa double checks, “You sure?”

Clarke nods, smile lopsided.

“I lust you with the other four letter l-word too.”

The second kiss is even better, hotter than the first. At once softer and deeper too. Their surest so far.

“What sort of delivery?” Clarke asks when she remembers Lexa’s opening greeting after they pull back. She points to where Monty and the rest of her crew are unloading boxes from the cargo crate unhooked from the helicopter. Thankfully they’re no longer a witness to their CEO and Chief Medic making out.

“Oh, that,” Lexa says, as if she’d forgotten herself. “I heard you guys were low on formula and vitamins. Brought them over from the main island.”

Seeing as the author of the Griffin Newsletter is the sole source Clarke confided in about her project’s struggles getting off ground, it’s clear who is Lexa’s informant. She’ll have to thank her mother later.

Clarke smiles, grateful it’ll save her a trip into Kuala Lumpur. Her gaze shifts to what’s in Lexa’s hand. “Then what’s that?”

“I don’t know what the burger situation is in Borneo, so, just in case.” Lexa opens the bag to pull out the content. “It’s a day old by now, but hopefully not ten years too late.”

Reading the branded logo on the yellow crinkled wrapping, Clarke laughs heartily. Happily.

“Not at all. Just in time.”

When Lexa leans in for a third kiss, then asks if Clarke’s tent is soundproof, Clarke leads the way forward, hand threading with Lexa’s. Whatever path they take next, she knows with certainty.

It’s only the start. And not what’s written on the other side of the takeout bag.

_The End._

**********

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternate chapter title: **everything trying, so kiss me**
> 
> EVERYTHING TRYING (Damien Jurado)  
>  _I’d call you now to tell you I’m thinking of you  
> _ _But it does me no good when the phone is just blocking my view  
> _ _And I would sail back to you  
> _ _I’ll be sailing on your deep blue eyes_
> 
> KISS ME (Sixpence None the Richer)  
>  _Oh, kiss me beneath the milky twilight  
> _ _Lead me out on the moonlit floor  
> _ _Lift your open hand  
> _ _Strike up the band, and make the fireflies dance_  
>  _Silvermoon’s sparkling_ _So kiss me_
> 
> —
> 
> Thanks for reading. This started as a one shot on Tumblr, which gladly turned into more. Hope it offered needed fluff and feels in trying times. Happy summer, wishing everyone nights full of champagne kisses, when we can all be safely in contact again. Until then, heed Jessie Ware's advice, [save a kiss](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4mcsokUXKc).
> 
> [@theproseofnight](https://theproseofnight.tumblr.com)


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